Love line was on the radio at work the other night and I heard Dr. Drew saying how he used myspace. When his girls meet some boy and he has a myspace page, Dr. Drew takes a look and can make a reasonable judgement call of "you are not going to see this guy again" or "have fun". I have to keep that in mind when my daughter gets a little older.
I got Finale's little brother Print Music for my wife to play around with. She loves it. Since then she has arranged three or four songs for our church choir to sing. She doesn't have a great understanding of music theory, but she can write music that sounds good. If you have a decent keyboard (we don't, but our neighbors do this), you can plug that into your box and it will transcribe what you play into sheet music. It's a pretty handy program and it has been well worth the money we spent. Their website has a stripped down demo that will give a good feel for how it works. The only beef I have with it is that it is pretty brutal for guitar, but I guess why they sell a guitar version. We never tried the big super deluxe program (way too expensive and total overkill for our purposes), but for composing and being able to print sheet music I think the 100 or so bucks is a good invetment. Yeah, like you said, it's not going to teach you how to play, but for composing it's a nice one to have.
With guitar you are so right. You can get started very quickly and easily. And then I can't say it enough: PRACTICE. It isn't too hard to learn a few chords and strum chords with a prescribed rythm, but to really get going it takes some practice. I remember reading a Steve Vai interview a long time ago where he talked about his structured practice in his early days. There were three three hour blocks. It was one hour each of scales, I think arppegios, and something else that escapes me. He repeated this three times and then spent an hour jamming. Someone elsewhere mentions jamming for ten hours and really making a lot of progress at the end of the session. Now Vai is insanely talented. I know most mere mortals can barely spare an hour to practice an instrument, but you can still get pretty good and have a lot of fun with that much regular practice. Apart from that I think the software would kind of get in the way when it comes to learning. But if it was the violin we were talking about here, I think that software would be exceptionally helpful without a competent teacher.
I don't know. Citing wiretapping laws in regards to the internet? Hasn't there been a bunch of debate on about the internet and phone lines? I know the phone companies have wanted to get a piece of the VoIP pie. Nothing else is coming to mind right now, but it seems like there has been a bunch of talk in this arena. I wonder if they're just opening up a big can of worms.
I looked at the headline and wondered if the primary source was the National Enquirer. Seems like almost everyone here at slashdot is falling in line with allusions to a police state and how evil El Presidente is.
Taser says take this and use it on me? The person holding it says take this and use it on me. It doesn't matter if it's a taser, a gun, or a switchblade. If you are holding it and the attacker can read that you aren't going to use it, the attacker has already won and the weapon will be used against you. That being said, I vote taser. It is non-lethal in virtually all circumstances, so people will be more likely to use it when push comes to shove.
I think taking note of the Asperger's in the sig line would be wise here. Asperger's types tend to analyze things much more than neuro typical people do.
I'm not the AC, but in HS we played before school and at lunch. When there was some assembly, we played then too. Then we would gather every week or two for 3+ hours of uninterrupted fun. Then we graduated and started college. Haven't played a RPG since. I think you may be onto something.
Out of the gaming loop for 15 years, but my old DM had a d100. I don't think the d30 was around yet. I think we actually used it once or twice in the course of our gaming. Not bad for 2 years. That thing was about useless. He also had a box of something like 200 d6's. Most of them sat in their original position in the box. If I remember correctly our groups resident clutz knocked it off the table one time and Medusa would have been proud of the look the DM gave him.
For that to compare well with RPGs, golf would have to be something that after 4 hours (or however long your group takes to do 18 holes) you still wouldn't be finished. You'd have to get to a point where you're saying "I'd love to go another 54 holes, but I've got to go to." Or after playing a round you'd have to have the feeling that if you don't play again soon with the same group regularly then something is very wrong. I know regular golf groups might be like that, but it still isn't the same. If the ranger drives by on the cart path no one is thinking, "I sure wish Bill was here with his +5 Big Bertha so we could take that sucker out in a hurry." In some ways I can see having a regular gaming group becoming a chore. Golf on the other hand isn't that way. If I could spare the time and money, I would love to golf once, or more, each week.
I'm with you on that. I haven't played a RPG for about 15 years. I got to a point where I knew that I wouldn't have a lot of time and playing is a HUGE time killer. I loved playing with my old group but we're stretched all across the country and joining a new group would kind of feel like cheating on my wife and not even getting a cheap thrill out of it. Board games are about all I can get into these days.
On the topic of board games, although the set up does take a little while, I recommend Heroscape. RPG Veterans should enjoy this one and the flexibility of the game allows for a huge variety of scenarios. Its mechanics are simple enough for my kids (ages 8-10) to play it without help, but it still has a lot of detail.
From an old slashdot story: http://goodoldadventures.com/index.html. Not quite a game, but it's based on the old Sierra King's Quest games, sequels, and spinoffs. If you're old like me, it's kind of a kick to go there and look around. Walking around Daventry as Roger Wilco...
I had a professor that looked even more like Flanders than that guy. He even sounded like him. If he would have dropped a Flanders line in one of his lectures I think the class would have fallen out of their chairs laughing.
The flu scare is being pushed by the media. How else are we hearing about it? Sure the government is talking about it, but it's being forced down our throats every night on the nightly news. I state the media is pushing it, not because you said it, but because the media is pushing it. Google news search for the bird flu and you find all kinds of venerable American news institutions on the first page of hits like Reuters, United Press International, ABC News, and the New York Times (can't accuse the NYT of being part of any republican conspiracy). If the above big guns in tne news media are part of a republican conspiracy then I am a fricken dyslexic idiot and reading is the least of my concern. So, yes, you are pretty funny, and, no, I don't need to learn to read. While I'm learning to read, check up on the grammatical rules Coward.
Flu scare being pushed by the media (perceived as moderate if you are on the left of the political spectrum and liberal if you are on the right) is a ploy to keep republicans in power? That is pure comedic genius. I need to read more AC posts.
This article was the first I heard of the post. I tried googling and the best I could come up with was a UN avian flu coordinator. And his statements that I found on the sites that came up does seem to dispell some of the doom and gloom so prevalent in the mass media. His own words seem to put a bit of perspective on the situation:
At the same time, I think it would be foolish for us to ignore the possibility that there will be another influenza pandemic. Indeed, there are many who say that it's certain that one day there will be a pandemic. We just don't know when and we don't know what will cause it. And this -- these pandemics do have major consequences.
So we do need, I think, to make the preparations in case the pandemic comes and try then to minimize its consequences. Of course, afterwards people might say why did you make all this fuss. But that, we're always facing that sort of comment when we do our public health work.
In one sense it is much ado about nothing. There is a potential for human to human transmission, but they're making a fuss about how devastating it could be. Basically trying to get people serious about the possibility of a pandemic caliber disease so it doesn't become a pandemic. Just throw in the media trying to one up their competitors and the death toll seems like it's already in the millions before it gets out of one or two regions.
You almost have a point. If you can name one state that doesn't have one idiot in the state legislature that brings up idiotic bills then I'll give that one to you. My bet is every state has multiple idiots in the legeslature. The Nation has multiple idiots and it is a whole lot easier to see how idiotic they are compared to state elections. 99 times out of 100 I go to the polls and just see a list of names and parties. The only information I can find is given in the voter information mailers that have the candidates own statements and nothing else. The best you usually get is looking up the incumbent's voting record and voting out the retards.
Actually there is no BYU Israel. There is a Jerusalem Center that study abroad trips go to, but no one is going to enroll and get a degree from BYU Israel.
So let me get this straight. You are defending the position that religion = stupid with logic taken from the old tradition that telling people what you wish when you blow out your birthday candles will make that wish not happen? If you are going to defend the whole religion = stupid notion at least have the sense to spell check.
Reminds me of a story of a college recruit. College A offered a half scholarship to play a sport. College B offered a third scholarship to play the sport. Recruit picks college A because one half is greater than one third. College A offered a bigger percentage of a scholarship and a larger dollar value as well. The recruit cited a single parent mother that would have difficulty making up the remainder of the necessary money. What the recruit failed to appreciate was that attending college A would require the recruit to make up around $40,000 to attend school while college B would require only $8,000. If it was truly about money the recruit, if truly smart, would have picked college B. Throw in that college B is regularly one of the top 2-3 teams in conference and college A is regularly one of the bottom 2-3 teams in the conference, the recruit really shines as a doofus.
The take home message is that numbers are good and fun, but it really helps to know what they represent. Total dollars the US is the biggest warmonger on this little rock. % of GDP tells a whole other story. There are other countries that appear to have the military as its primary industry. Makes me think of little yipping dogs.
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Love line was on the radio at work the other night and I heard Dr. Drew saying how he used myspace. When his girls meet some boy and he has a myspace page, Dr. Drew takes a look and can make a reasonable judgement call of "you are not going to see this guy again" or "have fun". I have to keep that in mind when my daughter gets a little older.
I got Finale's little brother Print Music for my wife to play around with. She loves it. Since then she has arranged three or four songs for our church choir to sing. She doesn't have a great understanding of music theory, but she can write music that sounds good. If you have a decent keyboard (we don't, but our neighbors do this), you can plug that into your box and it will transcribe what you play into sheet music. It's a pretty handy program and it has been well worth the money we spent. Their website has a stripped down demo that will give a good feel for how it works. The only beef I have with it is that it is pretty brutal for guitar, but I guess why they sell a guitar version. We never tried the big super deluxe program (way too expensive and total overkill for our purposes), but for composing and being able to print sheet music I think the 100 or so bucks is a good invetment. Yeah, like you said, it's not going to teach you how to play, but for composing it's a nice one to have.
With guitar you are so right. You can get started very quickly and easily. And then I can't say it enough: PRACTICE. It isn't too hard to learn a few chords and strum chords with a prescribed rythm, but to really get going it takes some practice. I remember reading a Steve Vai interview a long time ago where he talked about his structured practice in his early days. There were three three hour blocks. It was one hour each of scales, I think arppegios, and something else that escapes me. He repeated this three times and then spent an hour jamming. Someone elsewhere mentions jamming for ten hours and really making a lot of progress at the end of the session. Now Vai is insanely talented. I know most mere mortals can barely spare an hour to practice an instrument, but you can still get pretty good and have a lot of fun with that much regular practice. Apart from that I think the software would kind of get in the way when it comes to learning. But if it was the violin we were talking about here, I think that software would be exceptionally helpful without a competent teacher.
So does that mean that you readily believe conspiracy theories too? Have you had your microchip removed yet?
I don't know. Citing wiretapping laws in regards to the internet? Hasn't there been a bunch of debate on about the internet and phone lines? I know the phone companies have wanted to get a piece of the VoIP pie. Nothing else is coming to mind right now, but it seems like there has been a bunch of talk in this arena. I wonder if they're just opening up a big can of worms.
I looked at the headline and wondered if the primary source was the National Enquirer. Seems like almost everyone here at slashdot is falling in line with allusions to a police state and how evil El Presidente is.
Taser says take this and use it on me? The person holding it says take this and use it on me. It doesn't matter if it's a taser, a gun, or a switchblade. If you are holding it and the attacker can read that you aren't going to use it, the attacker has already won and the weapon will be used against you. That being said, I vote taser. It is non-lethal in virtually all circumstances, so people will be more likely to use it when push comes to shove.
I think taking note of the Asperger's in the sig line would be wise here. Asperger's types tend to analyze things much more than neuro typical people do.
Really, nerds not knowing that methanol causes blindness is the bigger joke.
I'm not the AC, but in HS we played before school and at lunch. When there was some assembly, we played then too. Then we would gather every week or two for 3+ hours of uninterrupted fun. Then we graduated and started college. Haven't played a RPG since. I think you may be onto something.
Out of the gaming loop for 15 years, but my old DM had a d100. I don't think the d30 was around yet. I think we actually used it once or twice in the course of our gaming. Not bad for 2 years. That thing was about useless. He also had a box of something like 200 d6's. Most of them sat in their original position in the box. If I remember correctly our groups resident clutz knocked it off the table one time and Medusa would have been proud of the look the DM gave him.
For that to compare well with RPGs, golf would have to be something that after 4 hours (or however long your group takes to do 18 holes) you still wouldn't be finished. You'd have to get to a point where you're saying "I'd love to go another 54 holes, but I've got to go to." Or after playing a round you'd have to have the feeling that if you don't play again soon with the same group regularly then something is very wrong. I know regular golf groups might be like that, but it still isn't the same. If the ranger drives by on the cart path no one is thinking, "I sure wish Bill was here with his +5 Big Bertha so we could take that sucker out in a hurry." In some ways I can see having a regular gaming group becoming a chore. Golf on the other hand isn't that way. If I could spare the time and money, I would love to golf once, or more, each week.
I'm with you on that. I haven't played a RPG for about 15 years. I got to a point where I knew that I wouldn't have a lot of time and playing is a HUGE time killer. I loved playing with my old group but we're stretched all across the country and joining a new group would kind of feel like cheating on my wife and not even getting a cheap thrill out of it. Board games are about all I can get into these days.
On the topic of board games, although the set up does take a little while, I recommend Heroscape. RPG Veterans should enjoy this one and the flexibility of the game allows for a huge variety of scenarios. Its mechanics are simple enough for my kids (ages 8-10) to play it without help, but it still has a lot of detail.
From an old slashdot story: http://goodoldadventures.com/index.html. Not quite a game, but it's based on the old Sierra King's Quest games, sequels, and spinoffs. If you're old like me, it's kind of a kick to go there and look around. Walking around Daventry as Roger Wilco...
Yeah, but does he have the chiselled physique that Flanders has?
Nope, I'm in the States. The guy was teaching classes on functional anatomy and orthopedic impairments.
I had a professor that looked even more like Flanders than that guy. He even sounded like him. If he would have dropped a Flanders line in one of his lectures I think the class would have fallen out of their chairs laughing.
The flu scare is being pushed by the media. How else are we hearing about it? Sure the government is talking about it, but it's being forced down our throats every night on the nightly news. I state the media is pushing it, not because you said it, but because the media is pushing it. Google news search for the bird flu and you find all kinds of venerable American news institutions on the first page of hits like Reuters, United Press International, ABC News, and the New York Times (can't accuse the NYT of being part of any republican conspiracy). If the above big guns in tne news media are part of a republican conspiracy then I am a fricken dyslexic idiot and reading is the least of my concern. So, yes, you are pretty funny, and, no, I don't need to learn to read. While I'm learning to read, check up on the grammatical rules Coward.
Flu scare being pushed by the media (perceived as moderate if you are on the left of the political spectrum and liberal if you are on the right) is a ploy to keep republicans in power? That is pure comedic genius. I need to read more AC posts.
At the same time, I think it would be foolish for us to ignore the possibility that there will be another influenza pandemic. Indeed, there are many who say that it's certain that one day there will be a pandemic. We just don't know when and we don't know what will cause it. And this -- these pandemics do have major consequences.
So we do need, I think, to make the preparations in case the pandemic comes and try then to minimize its consequences. Of course, afterwards people might say why did you make all this fuss. But that, we're always facing that sort of comment when we do our public health work.
In one sense it is much ado about nothing. There is a potential for human to human transmission, but they're making a fuss about how devastating it could be. Basically trying to get people serious about the possibility of a pandemic caliber disease so it doesn't become a pandemic. Just throw in the media trying to one up their competitors and the death toll seems like it's already in the millions before it gets out of one or two regions.
You almost have a point. If you can name one state that doesn't have one idiot in the state legislature that brings up idiotic bills then I'll give that one to you. My bet is every state has multiple idiots in the legeslature. The Nation has multiple idiots and it is a whole lot easier to see how idiotic they are compared to state elections. 99 times out of 100 I go to the polls and just see a list of names and parties. The only information I can find is given in the voter information mailers that have the candidates own statements and nothing else. The best you usually get is looking up the incumbent's voting record and voting out the retards.
The governor has stated publicly that creation and ID belong in a philosophy class if anywhere. I think that the bill was doomed to defeat or veto.
I thought profanity was the first language of people who work with computers.
Actually there is no BYU Israel. There is a Jerusalem Center that study abroad trips go to, but no one is going to enroll and get a degree from BYU Israel.
So let me get this straight. You are defending the position that religion = stupid with logic taken from the old tradition that telling people what you wish when you blow out your birthday candles will make that wish not happen? If you are going to defend the whole religion = stupid notion at least have the sense to spell check.
Reminds me of a story of a college recruit. College A offered a half scholarship to play a sport. College B offered a third scholarship to play the sport. Recruit picks college A because one half is greater than one third. College A offered a bigger percentage of a scholarship and a larger dollar value as well. The recruit cited a single parent mother that would have difficulty making up the remainder of the necessary money. What the recruit failed to appreciate was that attending college A would require the recruit to make up around $40,000 to attend school while college B would require only $8,000. If it was truly about money the recruit, if truly smart, would have picked college B. Throw in that college B is regularly one of the top 2-3 teams in conference and college A is regularly one of the bottom 2-3 teams in the conference, the recruit really shines as a doofus.
The take home message is that numbers are good and fun, but it really helps to know what they represent. Total dollars the US is the biggest warmonger on this little rock. % of GDP tells a whole other story. There are other countries that appear to have the military as its primary industry. Makes me think of little yipping dogs.