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I have seen first hand what damage D&D can wreck on unsuspecting kids.

All-of-a-sudden they get confused. They hear you talk of a game and yet there is no screen to see the game. Then they talk about some RPG games for a computer or console and don't understand how you can do something better with pen, paper and dice.

You begin by describing an alien world that exists only in the mind with a user interface that looks very different to facebook. At this point most compeltely give up...but some are susceptible to imagination and abstract thought and begin to imagine.

Before you know it they start blaspheming and talking about "gods" and pretending to be characters with divine-like powers that do away with rulers or anyone they do not like. Stealing, brutal executions, piracy, killing make-believe flying lizards for this thing they keep chanting like crazed monks "loot".

Piece by piece these kids become attached to their characters, and their character's flying horses or wands of wonder (which only makes sense if you're on crack; possibly a gateway drug) and the inevitable happens. That DM guy explain how something that makes no sense makes sense and your character dies, or you have the easiest battle except all your rolls are utter shit and that fucker DM keeps rolling 18, 19 and 20 and well your character dies because of that DM. (It's always him, he sets the penalties, sets the encounters, the monster actions, even the dice choice to randomly select who gets attacked and then the dice choice to randomly select how many attacks and even the damage, all that asshat's fault) and well...then your character is dead.
When little Timmy's character dies you know this game is evil. He was already socially rejected, isolated, alone, possibly with acne and braces...but when that character dies Timmy seriously loses his shit in the worst way.

Crying, anger, death threats, promises to succumb to the dark side and what not. It's ugly.

All I can say Timmy is that when you chet your DM on the dice roles one day he finds out. One day your level 16 expert theif slips during climbing and rolls downhill being unable to break the fall. He falls, hitting extremely sharp rocks on the way down following the natural curve in the mountain side he falls down a creek (yes on that unexplored side of the mountain and no it's not a creek that;s on the map cause it's too fucking small) and because of momentum he reaches the waterfall...AND FALLS...falling down and hitting some more rockas on the cascading waterfall he struggles to breathe as the current takes him...and washing him down another 8 fucking waterfalls. Yes, with very sharp rocks. Then the very thing that caused your expert climber thief to fall becomes apparent when he finally grabs on to some bush as he gasps for air being mortally wounded and bleeding but just in the real of the living. A loud, low rumble of the impending earthquake that sees half the mountain side come crashing down on you. CRASHING DOWN ON YOU TIMMY! FOLLOWED BY LIGHTNING BOLTS AND METEORS THAT HIT TAHT SMAE SPOT WHERE YOU ARE BECAUSE ALL YOUR MAGICAL ITEMS HAVE CREATED A POSITIVE CHARGE SO STRONG THAT THE AIR CANNOT ISOLATE YOU FROM THE NEGATIVE CHARGE INTHE ATMOISPHERE AND WHE NTHAT SHIT GETS ELECTRIFIED IT CAUSES A HORRENDOUS WAND OF WONDER MAGNETIC ATTRACTION TO NEAR FAERUN ASTEROIDS. YOU'RE DEAD. A SPLATTER CRISP OF A CINDER DEAD. BEYOND RESURRECTION AS THERE IS NOTHING TO RESSURECT. THE SMASHING AND ELECTROCUTION OF ALL YOUR MAGICAL GREAT CREATES A RIFT THAT SUCKS THAT PORTION AND WHATEVER REMAINS THERE ARE INTO THE NEGATIVE ELEMNTAL PLANE. THAT SORTA DEAD DEAD.


Sure that might be hard to imagine but just look what happen to Hitler when his character died; https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

So is D&D dangerous? -you decide. Just a word of advice, don't do the thing your DM hates the most and then keep it a secret and then amke it an inside joke in the group cause th

You forgot to link nerds :-)

"Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"

It simply isn't done that way.

Sometimes it is.

I got the style but not the grace
I got the clothes but not the face
I got the bread but not the butter
I got the window but not the shutter

But I'm big In Japan
I'm big in Japan
Hey, but I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan

I got the house but not the deed
I got the horn but not the reed
I got the cards but not the luck
I got the wheel but not the truck

But hey, I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
But hey, I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan

I got the moon, I got the cheese
I got the whole damn nation on their knees
I got the rooster, I got the crow
I got the ebb, I got the flow

I got the powder but not the gun
I got the dog but not the bun
I got the clouds but not the sky
I got the stripes but not the tie

But hey, I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan

Hey-ho, they love the way I do it
Hey-ho, there's really nothing to it

I got the moon, I got the cheese
I got the whole damn nation on their knees
I got the rooster, I got the crow
I got the ebb, I got the flow

I got the sizzle but not the steak
I got the boat but not the lake
I got the sheets but not the bed
I got the jam but not the bread

But hey, I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
Hey! I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan
I'm big in Japan

.

We have ads everywhere these days, except in our dreams.

Fight for your bitcoins!

More blipverts for the people!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You are UNMUTUAL.

It's not just a good idea, it's the law.

For matters of criminal law. That isn't how things work at war, on the battlefield, under the Law of War.

If you want to dispute that I would appreciate your thoughts on how the Federal soldiers facing the 15,000 charging Confederates of Pickett's Charge would have arrested, investigated, charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced the Confederates prior to shooting them by the thousands with musket and cannon.

so they employ people to do jobs that machines could do cheaper, because if you lay them all off, they will be a burden on society.

Why wouldn't they be able to find new jobs? Does society really benefit when you keep employing people to dig ditches by hand when you could just use an excavator? Why focus on making jobs rather than making progress?

Note that Japan has a _lower_ labor force participation rate (the number of employed people as a fraction of employable people) than the US (59.6% vs 62.5%). So even if Japan is not replacing people with machines in order to keep people employed, the result seems to be fewer people employed!

This effect is not news to economists, although it can be counterintuitive. The focus on keeping jobs at the cost of technological progress is known as the "make work bias", and it really isn't beneficial for anyone in the long term. See this for an economist explaining the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"who finds the constant buyouts and mergers disturbing?"

You should get up to speed on what has always been the case.

Science on reasoning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

The real news:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X

The Citibank memo

http://politicalgates.blogspot.ca/2011/12/citigroup-plutonomy-memos-two-bombshell.html

US distribution of wealth

https://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

"who finds the constant buyouts and mergers disturbing?"

You should get up to speed on what has always been the case.

Science on reasoning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

The real news:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X

The Citibank memo

http://politicalgates.blogspot.ca/2011/12/citigroup-plutonomy-memos-two-bombshell.html

US distribution of wealth

https://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

A little video about Candy Crush's success, from a design perspective.

Then you'll probably get a chuckle out of this as well.

Even non-armed or non-weaponized drones could wreak havoc on civilian craft and military aircraft. With a swarm a drones, any plane on takeoff or landing is vulnerable. Helicopters as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... A swarm of small, low cost drones could act as an effective and hard to detect air shield.

No privacy policy and no adblocker = No sale, chick.

Add AdBlock Extension in Vivaldi Web Browser

Yes, you can Add AdBlock Extension in Vivaldi Web Browser.

And Clayton Bigsby is his sidekick.

Listen to this at 2:55; they're checking. What are they checking? I don't see how they can confirm that the person in front of them matches any records available to the person on the other end of the radio. Perhaps they're checking if there's a valid reason for them to take further action against a person with that name and date of birth?

Alternative thoughts which don't appear to be rooted in a mistrust of the police?

Yeah how could they sell selfdriving vehicles with a straight face? What fuckin moron would buy one if they had the probability of "plow into a children" easter egg a la this commercial?

You should stop buying VW cars, and buy American made trucks instead, like these.

GODAMMIT! This Is TRUTH In Engineering! Were you NOT watching our commercials!

Eff Interstellar, it's Intergalactic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"Can no one disagree in a civil manner and speak to each other like grown men?"

No, because the brain is bad at thinking.

Science on reasoning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Too late. The KKK has already been darkened

It's a good day to die!

I imagine these days the entire crew will be LGBT, and female.
If not I expect quite a but of "outrage".

Woo woo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"HP Is Now Two Companies. How Did It Get Here?"

Two words: Carly Fiorina.

I know people throw around the term psychopath in connection with CEO character a lot but in this case, she absolutely ticks off the boxes, including :

PATHOLOGICAL LYING

Carly Fiorina Makes a Lot of Stuff Up About Everything

http://www.motherjones.com/pol...

CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS

"..the thing that comes through clearest is this almost, if we werenâ(TM)t on TV, Iâ(TM)d say almost psychopathic denial of reality. As you saw, even the creators of that hoax Planned Parenthood video, that even they say that this is not the footage that she says it isâ¦when she was national finance chairman for McCain, she was jousting with him, what his positions are on contraceptives, trying to contradict him in real time. It was very bizarre.

Or saying that he is not equipped to be the CEO of a corporation, but he could be the commander in chief while sheâ(TM)s helping to run his campaign, and then denying she said it when it was on tapes everywhere.

This is like, she stomps her feet and demands that black is white, hot is cold, and rich is poor and wins are losses.â

âoeâ¦Many great leaders failed. but their resilience came from exoneration or contrition. She just stomps her feet and demands redemption. You have to earn redemption.â

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/is-...

LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT

Wallace: âoeWhat about the 30,000 American jobs that you laid off?â

Fiorina: âoeYou know, every family and every business in California knows what it means to go through tough times. And every family is cutting back, and every business is laying off right now. I donâ(TM)t say that with delight. I say that with sorrow. But yes, it is true that jobs are being taken out of California. By the way, China fights harder for our jobs than we do.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/is-...

SHALLOW AFFECT / CALLOUSNESS / LACK OF EMPATHY

As CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina laid off 18,000 workers. When reflecting on her tenure, she admitted she wished she had "done them all faster."
Fiorina Fired At Least 18,000 HP Employees

POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS / IMPULSIVITY

According to those who work with her, she has a barely stifled impulsivity towards make deeply personal and alienating remarks to others, and for no real reason :

She once ridiculed the music interests and appearance of a dissenting board member Walter Hewitt, son of HPâ(TM)s co-founderâ"as well as the allegedly dowdy look of rival Senate candidate Barbara Boxer.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazi...

a trait she *barely* has under control as evidenced by this live mic "accident" .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

IRRESPONSIBILITY

"....She makes irresponsible decisions. At HP, Fiorina abruptly pivoted from a strategy of chasing IT services to a splashier, but less sound strategy of ramping up in device manufacturing.

While her predecessor, revered HP CEO Lew Platt, traveled coach in commercial planes, she demanded the company buy her a Gulfstream IV. More recently, her service on the Taiwan Semiconductor board indicates continued irresponsibility. Financial disclosures at the time Fiorina left the board in 2009 show that she attended just 17 percent of the companyâ(TM)s board meetings."

Put your Viking helmet on! Spread that mayonnaise on the lawn!

Oh wait, you said kittens, not weasels...

Here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Says it all.

Google celebrates English mathematician George Boole's 200th birthday.You can see the video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Take a moment to review NERC EOP-005-2: System Restoration from Blackstart Resources. If you live in North America, plans described in this document are your only real line of defense from the chaos and harm that may arise from grid-down disaster. Here is a peek at some software tools used by the industry and Black Start specific enhancements in progress [2013].

Note that NERC's Compliance and Enforcement process is voluntary. This means no one's going to jail for failure to implement these measures... and there are many in the industry who prefer it that way. We have witnessed the growth of the Department of Homeland Security way past its original mandate. Indeed there is a slow motion power grab in progress.

If you distrust large corporations and the consortiums they form then you're already suspicious. But few can argue that the grid is not resilient or well designed. In most cases frequency and voltage give operators all the feedback they need. But it has not ever been shut off completely, and the electrical equivalent of post-9/11 'ground stop' is neither practical nor possible to test black start capability... NERC does do regular computer simulations of country-wide restarts.

So if you are fortunate to live near one of the ~7,304 operational power plants in the United States (for example) and know some people who work there, you might pose these questions:

Has your plant participated in EOP-005 drills?
Has there ever been a country or region-wide drill where procedures are acted out in real time?
Do you feel the time presently devoted to this scenario is adequate, and plans are in place?
Do you have confidence that the grid could be restarted successfully?
Are there any 'old school' approaches to this problem you feel are not addressed or trained adequately?
To what extent are these black start procedures reliant on computers and functional computer networks?
What kinds of grid-wide inter-plant communications are in place for coordination when the grid is down?
Would any coordination efforts rely on carrier networks (telephone, cell, Internet) being up?

The very first BBC episode of Connections The Trigger Effect explores how we have become reliant on modern technology without needing to understand its intricacies, and uses the Northeast Blackout on November 9, 1965 and peoples' reactions to illustrate this.

If Black Start should fail or become delayed indefinitely, National Geographic: American Blackout is a documentary that dramatically explores effects of an extended grid outage. It is a tame outage -- no Winter freeze or volcanic ash --- with cyberattack as its rather specious scenario. At present the operational controls of power plants are diverse and there is a great deal of manual control, and a coordinated attack could only target the grid monitoring systems and communications between plants.

"The recent approval of CISA .. by the US Congress and Senate is paving the way for yet more surveillance of the civilian population under the pretext of national security."

Correct.

The (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ZyJw_cHJY

Brezinski at a press conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTIZBCQ79g

Major powers, and imposing control over the awakened masses.

https://youtu.be/4usbR_kKCDs?t=397

"The recent approval of CISA .. by the US Congress and Senate is paving the way for yet more surveillance of the civilian population under the pretext of national security."

Correct.

The (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ZyJw_cHJY

Brezinski at a press conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTIZBCQ79g

Major powers, and imposing control over the awakened masses.

https://youtu.be/4usbR_kKCDs?t=397

"You can't take three from two, two is less than three, so you look at the four in the eights place..."

Thanks for the Tom Lehrer reference.

Crack garage door 2 inches. Blast 2 hour looped ghost sounds.

At my house, we just do a live re-enactment of the the music video for Bleed by Meshuggah. I don't just want the kids scared, I want them to walk away from my house with PTSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"It is sad that most people cannot apply logic to solving problems. With all the facts at hand, too often irrational conclusions are arrived at."

That's because human reasoning doesn't work like we thought it did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

1 - download Vixen and start buying gear for lighting automation.
http://www.vixenlights.com/

2 - buy several 1000-3000 lumen projectors and buy pre-made projection mapping video loops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

or custom over the top....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

combine the two and you will own your city's halloween decoration destination. Buy everything in pieces as you are looking at probably $20G to do it right.

1 - download Vixen and start buying gear for lighting automation.
http://www.vixenlights.com/

2 - buy several 1000-3000 lumen projectors and buy pre-made projection mapping video loops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

or custom over the top....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

combine the two and you will own your city's halloween decoration destination. Buy everything in pieces as you are looking at probably $20G to do it right.

if you're Syrian, I'm so sorry, but this trend of westerners 'othering' their governments when they're part of it fucking baffles me.

I, most certainly, did not vote for Obama, who got just barely more than 50% of the vote and quickly fell below that in approval ratings. Congress' ratings are even worse.

At any point in time about half the country disagrees with the sitting President and the Legislature. We accept them as a necessary evil — "evil" being the keyword — hence the "othering".

We hire the government to do the things, that nobody else can do or be allowed to do: protect us from violence within and without and enforce the contracts. They should not be allowed to do anything else: not issue loans, not treat the sick, not feed the hungry nor shelter the homeless, none of that — and certainly not sell electricity. All of that was a mission creep, which ought to stop.

I am from the government and I am here to help.

We're considering as a set of those "unalienable" rights. I guess the founders of the USA never really thought stuff like that would be necessary since they put those amendments 4 and 10 into the Constitution. I guess they didn't count on corrupt judges on the Supreme Court re-interpreting the Constitution to mean what they'd like it to mean. Kind of like the definition of is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If you check out Pottering's video on youtube, he mentions something about OS X's launchd process (the init process of OS X). Launchd centrally creates sockets to remove inter-daemon dependencies that allows OS X daemons to run in parallel and therefore boot the OS quickly.

TL;DR, systemd is following the OSS tradition of copycatting proprietary technology into free software.

video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

drowning masses at the beach

Yes, well, let's hope they can get out of the way. The water isn't moving that fast..

Wrong. Churchill sad that, not Gates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

> Unlike common criminals, try cooperating with the police. You'll be better off in the end for it generally.

Sigh... Dont Talk to Police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://www.kirkpiccione.com/10...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Red Dwarf CSI spoof.

While drugs are bad there is also evidence that shitty environmental situations, not just addiction, drive people to drugs in the first place.

Your "honest person observation" smells an awful lot like what prejudice people say when they want to persecute minorities.
"Any honest person will tell you that, in their experience, [group] are [lazy/dumb/useless/not REAL people so it's ok that we treat them like shit]"

Giving drug abusers an even shittier environment to live in by demonizing them isn't going to lead to better outcomes for society.
Watch this but with a grain of salt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The point is not that the public should embrace the use of drugs but that the war on drugs is a complete failure and actually doing harm.
It only makes sense that you should try something else when what you're doing isn't working.

For example, we could legalize marijuana and decriminalize other drugs and use the income from taxes on marijuana to fund education to prevent abuse and social programs to help abusers get back on their feet and be proud of themselves and break their addiction (and, possibly more importantly, their need for their addiction.)
Ideally we'd try lots of different methods of helping people and use studies to see which methods are actually effective and worth continued funding.

So, we wouldn't be wasting taxes on law enforcement and prison sentences for abusers, we'd hopefully undercut the black market and cut down on drug related crime, it would potential be self-funding (the best kind of taxation), and people might actually get help instead of being treated like scum.

I don't have any ideas for what to do about drug dealers who can no longer make a profit selling drugs, though. It'd suck to collapse that economy and drive them to a worse crime.

And honestly, we already tax alcohol and tobacco and I have to wonder where all of that money is going. It seems to me if 100% of that were going to education and social programs for drug abusers (including alcohol and tobacco) then we'd probably be in a lot better place.