I completely disagree. The problem is we're in a boiled frog situation, and it will take something truly galvanizing to make people work for change.
David Koresh was minding his own business and he was attacked. McVeigh was stupid in his plan of attack, IMHO. Bombings are a very bad way to go about things. If you're going to go on a one man crusade, systematic assassination is a far better path to tread. I don't know much about Rudolph, but he's in the same arena - bombing vs assassination.
As far as taking up arms against the government, I'd suggest that if you were an influential person around 1776 that we'd still owe our allegiance to the queen. King had a large following, people had the cajones to follow him, and more power to him for it. This is a different thing entirely, people seem content to be spied upon.
Giving up your weapons ties your hands for the last round of the fight, when things are most desperate. Just because the populace hasn't revolted yet, doesn't mean they won't. Things certainly can get worse, to toss that possibility aside with the "It can't happen here" blinders on is to be ignorant of history.
I'm guessing you weren't subjected to this draconian douchebaggery, yet here you are all growed up and more or less ok. I grew up, unrestricted, on the internet and I'm a developer because of it.
This is natural selection if you don't teach your kids about the internet - good and bad.
1 a: the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God b: the act of claiming the attributes of deity 2: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable
Then there are the people who try to candy coat Yahweh, as though he'd do no such thing and there are loopholes. To deny the existence of God, all three of his forms (which strikes me as polytheism, but that's another story) is indeed blasphemy, blasphemy against God is unforgivable. I fail to see what's so hard to follow here.
The greatestevidence that the God of Abraham doesn't exist, is from the very book[s] that proclaims he does. Then there's the whole mess about it being a ripoff of Egyptian mythology, with a healthy dose of Greek and Pagan mythology thrown in for fun.
I'd suggest that the vast majority of believers haven't honestly considered the possibility there is no god, or that they might've been raised to believe in the wrong one. Indeed, to deny the existence of the Abrahamic god is an unforgivable sin.
Indoctrination does not really lend itself to free choice; people are tremendously easy to manipulate. It's one of the oldest skills, and now one of the most perfected.
Perl is my Swiss Army Knife. Anything that I can reasonably fit in one to five files, I'll do in Perl. If I need a web app of less than 5 or 10 pages, I'll use PHP. Complex webapps, long running heavy daemons are Java.
Well, I watch all my movies through a windows PC attached to the TV anyway, and I used my Nokia 770 + VNC (up until the dog ate the charger) as a remote. Now I just launch movies from my desktop or laptop.
If you're a techie, the format isn't TOO inconvenient, the selection is just pitiful. I'd really like to get a lot more Discovery/Natl. Geographic type stuff on there.
Monsters get "grapple actions" based on their BAB, just as PC's do.
Look up "Retrieve a Spell Component", but honestly... grappled wizards? D-Door, man!
SU abilities, are simply "yes" with no grapple check. They don't generally provoke, have no components, don't take more than 1 std. action.
I'd based all that on the "Move" section. As far as exactly "where" you are, you occupy whatever square you moved into, and have subsequently been moved to.
So I'm a little OCD, *shrug*. Ultimately, any "fringe" cases will be DM judgement calls and house rules. The books can only go so far.
Oh yeah, I wanted to address some of your other points.
Trip/Disarm/Sunder/Bull Rush: All similar to grappling
Cleric turning: Doesn't scale worth a god damn, and it's complicated as all hell - broken. Nothing some house rules won't fix, but I haven't bothered yet.
Spellcaster out of spells: Play spell points and institute a recharge rate house rule.
Ultimately, the problems with 3.5 are pretty minor and the investments I've made are truly significant (they might top my firearm investments, that's saying something). It's similar to the XP vs. Vista debate IMHO.
Oh, and while we still have 3.5 - use Post-it style sticky tabs for your bookmarks.
Grappling's actually pretty easy once you read and understand the process.
Make a touch attack, which will provoke unless you have a feat to stop it.
If the touch attack hits, make opposed grapple checks; if the offender wins you're "grappling".
After that, there are a number of things you can/can't do while grappling. It's important to note though, that once you're grappling you're both equals. If you beat the dragon's grapple the next time around, you can hold on until he "says uncle!". It's just infrequently used in most campaigns, and like all infrequently used rules, it's poorly understood by most.
I use AnyDVD as an intermediary software, to bypass encryption and DRM. Handbrake is a spectacularly easy "click and rip" program. AnyDVD and Handbrake allows me to simply change the saved filename, click Encode, and in about an hour it's done (1300kbps, two pass). As a perk, Handbrake is cross-platform.
I don't care about Ruby, Rails, or their community. I didn't even read the whole damn article because it's mostly rehashing the same shit. Here's what I took away from what I did read:
Zed's awesome. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge Zed's awesomeness is fucking retarded. Anyone who actively disagrees should fight Zed. Anyone who fights Zed would lose, because after all, Zed's awesome. Zed's tears cure cancer, too bad Zed has never cried - ever.
Zed, while there may be merit to some of your complaints, that doesn't change the fact that you're a colossal egotistical prick.
Sure it can be dangerous, but it also has tremendous potential. Our chances of getting obliterated by some naturally evolved super bug are pretty high anyway. The universe is hostile to life, life is hostile to life.
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind many of the Really Bad Guys(tm) you can think of throughout history, were elected to high office at some point.
See the Bonus Army, MOVE, Ruby Ridge, David Koresh, Katrina disarmament, et al. Then read about the Milgram Experiment.
I completely disagree. The problem is we're in a boiled frog situation, and it will take something truly galvanizing to make people work for change.
David Koresh was minding his own business and he was attacked. McVeigh was stupid in his plan of attack, IMHO. Bombings are a very bad way to go about things. If you're going to go on a one man crusade, systematic assassination is a far better path to tread. I don't know much about Rudolph, but he's in the same arena - bombing vs assassination.
As far as taking up arms against the government, I'd suggest that if you were an influential person around 1776 that we'd still owe our allegiance to the queen. King had a large following, people had the cajones to follow him, and more power to him for it. This is a different thing entirely, people seem content to be spied upon.
Giving up your weapons ties your hands for the last round of the fight, when things are most desperate. Just because the populace hasn't revolted yet, doesn't mean they won't. Things certainly can get worse, to toss that possibility aside with the "It can't happen here" blinders on is to be ignorant of history.
I'm guessing you weren't subjected to this draconian douchebaggery, yet here you are all growed up and more or less ok. I grew up, unrestricted, on the internet and I'm a developer because of it.
This is natural selection if you don't teach your kids about the internet - good and bad.
Flamebait would've been me posting my opinion of the deity, which is very much in line with that of Dawkins and Hitchens.
Google is your friend.
What funny, is that I as an atheist, have probably read more of the bible than many of it's believers.
The greatest evidence that the God of Abraham doesn't exist, is from the very book[s] that proclaims he does. Then there's the whole mess about it being a ripoff of Egyptian mythology, with a healthy dose of Greek and Pagan mythology thrown in for fun.
I'd suggest that the vast majority of believers haven't honestly considered the possibility there is no god, or that they might've been raised to believe in the wrong one. Indeed, to deny the existence of the Abrahamic god is an unforgivable sin.
Indoctrination does not really lend itself to free choice; people are tremendously easy to manipulate. It's one of the oldest skills, and now one of the most perfected.
The editorializing in tags drives me nuts; I wish they were hidden by default when not logged in.
/. as much as I used to. Same reason I avoid videos on MySpace - too much stupid.
I think it's one of the reasons I don't frequent
Perl is my Swiss Army Knife. Anything that I can reasonably fit in one to five files, I'll do in Perl. If I need a web app of less than 5 or 10 pages, I'll use PHP. Complex webapps, long running heavy daemons are Java.
That's the 10,000' view, anyway.
Oh, and now I need Windows Media Player 11, which I can't install because I refuse to install WGA.
Broken by design.
Well, I watch all my movies through a windows PC attached to the TV anyway, and I used my Nokia 770 + VNC (up until the dog ate the charger) as a remote. Now I just launch movies from my desktop or laptop.
If you're a techie, the format isn't TOO inconvenient, the selection is just pitiful. I'd really like to get a lot more Discovery/Natl. Geographic type stuff on there.
Seriously, the "Watch Instantly" selection sucks. I have 24hr/mo and I think I've used maybe 24 hours since I signed up for the service 6 months ago.
On an unrelated grammatical note, should that be Netflix' or Netflix's?
On yet another unrelated note: I wish people would stop editorializing in tags. I'm looking at you Mr. "!netfilx"
Well...
Monsters get "grapple actions" based on their BAB, just as PC's do.
Look up "Retrieve a Spell Component", but honestly... grappled wizards? D-Door, man!
SU abilities, are simply "yes" with no grapple check. They don't generally provoke, have no components, don't take more than 1 std. action.
I'd based all that on the "Move" section. As far as exactly "where" you are, you occupy whatever square you moved into, and have subsequently been moved to.
So I'm a little OCD, *shrug*. Ultimately, any "fringe" cases will be DM judgement calls and house rules. The books can only go so far.
Oh yeah, I wanted to address some of your other points.
Trip/Disarm/Sunder/Bull Rush: All similar to grappling
Cleric turning: Doesn't scale worth a god damn, and it's complicated as all hell - broken. Nothing some house rules won't fix, but I haven't bothered yet.
Spellcaster out of spells: Play spell points and institute a recharge rate house rule.
Ultimately, the problems with 3.5 are pretty minor and the investments I've made are truly significant (they might top my firearm investments, that's saying something). It's similar to the XP vs. Vista debate IMHO.
Oh, and while we still have 3.5 - use Post-it style sticky tabs for your bookmarks.
Grappling's actually pretty easy once you read and understand the process.
Make a touch attack, which will provoke unless you have a feat to stop it.
If the touch attack hits, make opposed grapple checks; if the offender wins you're "grappling".
After that, there are a number of things you can/can't do while grappling. It's important to note though, that once you're grappling you're both equals. If you beat the dragon's grapple the next time around, you can hold on until he "says uncle!". It's just infrequently used in most campaigns, and like all infrequently used rules, it's poorly understood by most.
Sounds like VLC on OSX isn't ideal. I use it on Ubuntu and Windows XP and I'd hack off someone's legs before giving them up.
I use AnyDVD as an intermediary software, to bypass encryption and DRM. Handbrake is a spectacularly easy "click and rip" program. AnyDVD and Handbrake allows me to simply change the saved filename, click Encode, and in about an hour it's done (1300kbps, two pass). As a perk, Handbrake is cross-platform.
I'm aware, but it's all under one neat installer that doesn't totally fuck up my shell. That's what originally turned me off of codec packs.
One does run out of movies to watch after a while, really long series are a good place to go.
I can't stand having a TON of codecs in a million installers on my computer. I'm very happy with VLC :D
AnyDVD + Handbrake + VideoLAN
"We work hard, so you don't have to"
I don't care about Ruby, Rails, or their community. I didn't even read the whole damn article because it's mostly rehashing the same shit. Here's what I took away from what I did read:
Zed's awesome. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge Zed's awesomeness is fucking retarded. Anyone who actively disagrees should fight Zed. Anyone who fights Zed would lose, because after all, Zed's awesome. Zed's tears cure cancer, too bad Zed has never cried - ever.
Zed, while there may be merit to some of your complaints, that doesn't change the fact that you're a colossal egotistical prick.
Man, that's awfully short sighted.
Sure it can be dangerous, but it also has tremendous potential. Our chances of getting obliterated by some naturally evolved super bug are pretty high anyway. The universe is hostile to life, life is hostile to life.
Don't sweat it, you'll go mad.