Thrik

Assuming you meant isn't, that's pretty easy to manage without making the post count more or less meaningless. I'm particularly partial to just not displaying it outside of profiles, perhaps even making it so only the profile owner can see it. That way there's literally no incentive to spam because it's not sat there next to every post like some kind of status symbol. As it is, it might as well just be removed because this many years in I'd estimate that many of us have hundreds if not thousands of posts in Idle Banter.

Don't give away my secrets!

It's a weird quirk that Idle Thumbs doesn't count the Idle Banter forum against post counts. Not only does it attract some pretty great discussion, I'd kind of like to know what obscene number of posts I've put in here since 2004.

I hope you've prepared for your imminent demise, Mington.

The really dark part is that countless people have likely been subjected to comparable psychotic behaviour in the real world.

I'm quite partial to the wonderfully unisex 'dickminge'.

Good lord.

Lol. That seems to be a general IP.Board bug, at least with Chrome. I get it on my forum too.

Right, that's it — I'm ejecting from the world.

Well, I put it in spoiler tags because it's quite straightforward to determine the puzzle's solution if you know the exact nature of the bug. I guess I didn't describe it in enough detail to provide too much elucidation, but here goes:

Ah man, this god damn sub-forum. I was looking all over the place in the gaming forum for a DayZ thread. I never check these sub-forums so now I'm wondering how many wonderful discussions I've missed out on over the years. Anyway, this is just splendid: It's the kind of experience that single-player horror games can only dream of conjuring up.

My ex moved out and took the last of her stuff today, ending about 2.5 months of living together following the break-up of a several-year relationship. Not going to lie, feeling really sad. It's not the relationship itself I'm lamenting the loss of — that happened long ago, and it was I who initiated the break-up. It's more just being well and truly alone in my flat for the first time in years, without any of her things lying around and all of the everyday stuff finally at an end. Even though I'm resolute that this was needed, it's still difficult. Nothing more that can be said or done, just got to adjust to single (living) life again.

Loving this electronica artist. Should appeal to those who like minimal vocals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxrTGMijT6k

Apparently the official X-Men page removed it, but this shouldn't have happened — especially when it's tied to a franchise with main themes that are consistently about prejudice, intolerance, etc. Hope someone got fired over that. I scrolled down to check out a few comments, then quickly realised this was a mistake when one of the first I saw in response to a complaint about the advert's sexist nature was: Immediate impulse to lay into the guy resisted, now moving on.

I've been really enjoying the radio stations in GTA5, but I listen almost exclusively to the electronica, reggae, and pop-orientated ones. I enjoy rock too, but have noticed that there's little that catches my ear on those stations.

Some kids definitely have inherent consideration of their own safety that seems to be completely absent in others. One of my sisters is, like me, extremely careful and always has been even when so young that you wouldn't think they have any sense of danger. I've always had an extremely high interest in self-preservation, which admittedly has made me outright refuse to do a number of things throughout my entire life — but I've never had any broken bones or serious accidents, so there's that. My other sister is just a nutter, the kind who will sprint at a huge sheer drop and then stop dead right at the edge just for the thrill (this is something she once did at a castle and gave everyone a mini-heart attack). I'm guessing that there's a link between these personalities and those who are willing to do uncontrolled high-risk activities such as sky diving (i.e. if you do something wrong you die). I can't get enough of 100%-controlled stuff like roller coasters, though.

Actually, yes. My upside-down cars bursting into flames was a common annoyance I don't miss in the slightest.

@thrik

Nothing I can really say about this other than: listen to it, you fool.

Good article, enjoyed that. I maintain that Lost was a splendid show, but sadly one that would have been impossible to end satisfactorily. I just don't think that you can build up that much madness without the conclusion seeming like a fairly paltry bang. Still, I can't say that I particularly objected to the ending. I too didn't experience much if any of the marketing, so I just took the story as it came with little hype or expectation. I was definitely totally into the online speculation though, poring over episodes' details. It's weird how much I got into that, especially considering that no other show has done that for me — although Fringe had a lot of similar attributes that I enjoyed speculating about once the story really opened up during the second season and beyond, but that was mostly in my own head. I remember being so excited when I predicted at the end of the second season of Lost that the third season would feature a nearby small island, because for literally a split second during the sequence when Michael drives the boat away with Walt you see a glimpse of it. That was probably just a production blip in reality, but it felt stupidly exciting when it actually was how season three went.

Hmm, bloody hell. I'm not sure if I completely like the sound of this! I mean, there are certain conventions you just expect from a Metal Gear Solid game. I guess the open world nature of these games aids this concept somewhat, as you'll have to actually retreat to somewhere quiet to enjoy some conversation — this will presumably be much more significant in The Phantom Pain's vastly expanded world. It's great that what you look at it affects what's spoken about, potentially leading to all sorts of incidental yet enjoyable dialogue. I can imagine this being really immersive (a big part of MGS for me), particularly in remote locations. MGS3's animal system would have worked a lot better if you could have looked at the animals and spoken to your specialist about them, rather than having to pick them up and her just discuss whatever new animals you've collected. Also, codec conversations have always been affected by where precisely you are (sometimes right down to the metre) so having more control over that will be cool. I do hope that The Phantom Pain restores the concept of multiple conversation contacts, although I guess that could get really difficult to keep manageable. Anyway, interesting stuff.

It's interesting that MGS4 became so like that, as I feel that MGS3 found an excellent balance between gameplay and cutscenes. I still enjoyed it overall, but I'd much prefer to see a balance more like MGS3 in The Phantom Pain. One major weakness that MGS3 did have was ultra-long codec sequences; while I love MGS's codecs and the fact that you can trigger non-essential conversations at will, it does feel like they get in the way of the ongoing action at times. That's actually a really big change to the formula. Is there a way for the action to be suspended while conversations happen? I'm thinking about how you could take time to talk to your backup for advice and tips during regular gameplay and boss segments in the previous games — it was nice being able to exit the pressures of the intense stealth for that. Can you even trigger conversations and/or choose who with for that matter?

You raise an interesting point with the 'gay' example. I've always avoided using that as an insult because it does indeed paint being gay as a pejorative in and of itself. Personally, I don't see 'bitch' as being loaded in the same way, but I guess that could just be a perception issue of mine. When I call someone a bitch, there's no intent of saying 'like a woman' — to me, it's a generic insult no different to 'idiot', 'ass', or 'scum-sucking fiend'. What you're saying is that certain words like that are as loaded as a racist slur, and that uttering them is reprehensible (more or less) regardless of context. I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with that if that's genuinely how it's viewed, but what I'm saying is that it isn't how I've ever viewed it, and rushing to label someone a misogynist for using them is exhibiting a very distorted sense of righteousness. The fact that Architecture saw fit to call me poisonous despite knowing very little about my true beliefs regarding women (or even my gender, most likely) is an example of this. I guess I muddied my original point somewhat, but what I was getting at is that a lot of people use such words without there being an ounce of misogynistic intent behind it. 'Cunt' and 'twat' — along with 'arse' and 'dick', I should add — are great examples of words that even somebody as detached from reality as I know are loaded to the gills in some parts of the world, yet in the UK are as commonplace as 'idiot' or 'moron' and are truly gender-neutral, used by guys and girls alike across the board. Yet utter one of those in front of people from certain regions and you attract often-hurtful judgemental comments. If I am objectively and unanimously agreed to be part of the problem, I guess I can't argue with that and I'm sorry.