DanJW

Heh, the only Warhammer novel I ever read was Inquisitor. The guys on TV Tropes seem to love the Ciaphas Cain series though, for its sheer bombaster. It sounds like Flashman IN SPACE.

(It's almost certainly a live audience that sounds a bit canned due to editing. BBC stopped using canned laughter a long long time ago).

I got borderline Liberal/Centrist.

Through the Roof and Underground, by Gogol Bordello. The film made me a fan too.

Hmm yeah also not really how I see. Might be how some right-wingers see it. But the right wing is more likely to persecute minorities, which puts paid to 'freedom'. For my part I see it as co-operation vs competition. The Right sees human nature as just fine as it is and healthy competition as the best way to continue. The Left accepts that there are flaws with human nature and tries to overcome them by fostering co-operation and objective critical thinking. Heart vs Head maybe (Maybe that's saying the same thing you did, but without using contentious language like "the left denies us freedom") REally though, I doubt we're about to Solve Politics here on Thumbs

Well deserved indeed! It makes me proud to be a listener and forum member. Congratulations and rock on.

I'm sorry did you read the thread? Normally I'd agree with you but this is pretty different. Welcome to Idle Thumbs I guess. Although by your sig you might well be a marketing bot.

Heh. I only this year learned about the Krampus.

Also, Santa Claus was depicted in several different costumes (mostly green), including the red one, before Coca Cola came along and made red the definitive version. One possible origin I like for the costume: the Santa Claus figure has many pre-Christian roots (eg he is actually Odin) and some links to Slavic Shamanism. One traditional shaman ritual costume is freshly flayed reindeer hide, worn inside-out. Red on the outside, white fur on the inside and the edges. I enjoy telling children this theory at this time of year. Here's another one. We kiss under mistletoe because it was a holy plant and symbol of fertility to druids and other celtic faiths. Fertility? Yes; in some stories it is said to be divine drops of godly semen.

Yeah Tolkien spoke at least once about how he disliked allegory. And Narnia is about 75% allegory. Narnia is specifically for children though. Other than The Hobbit, Tolkien was writing for an adult voice. (even then I think adults get a lot more out of The Hobbit than they do from Narnia).

Holy crap there's a christmas invasion! Much gratitude to our battlefield champion, David, for staunchly massacring them.

Fixed edit: Jack Bredkin?

Hmm. One could ask why you are google-stalking these gentlemen? I'm sure if you send them a polite PM here on thumbs they will furnish you with photos in almost any pose you like.

I finished Mirror's Edge. Yeah I'm a bit behind. I was a tiny bit disappointed. I never felt as in control as I would have liked, like I was too clumsy a lot of the time. That goes triple for the combat, which was just horrible. I think a major setback is the console-cross-hair problem - I'd pull of some amazing evasion and end up behind an enemy, where the disarm is supposed to be automatic - and then it wouldn't work, presumably because my crosshair wasn't in quite the right place. Then I'd get smacked in the face and die. I spent a lot of time replaying the same ten seconds of game, to the point where I just switched the game off a few times (that goddamned Ropeburn guy and his split-second what-is-essentially a QTE!!) Sigh The story wasn't exactly mindblowing either. At least it avoided a lot of sci-fi stuffing; it could easily have gone all Fahrenheit shaped. But I didn't really care at all and some things that were meant to be really significant just weren't, like the role of Jack-Knife. I'm sure they could have got a lot more political and/or philosophical than they did. Still, I think it was a great thing to attempt and more games like it should be made. Just because the execution wasn't perfect should not scare off publishers from trying new things.

Come to Brighton! You will fit right in at one of the steampunk burlesque nights! Fedoras rock BTW.

Interesting. When I was at school they really hammered it into us (information about it, that is ). This was the tail end of the 80's and early 90's though, when the HIV scare* was still at peak in the UK. Doing biology A-level may have helped too. (*compared to the usual UK health scares this was by far the most sensible)

Thirded for it being an all-time great. Except I'll say that the ending is not half bad, as game endings go. Of course there is more than one.

That's one of my favourite movies ever. I watch it at least once a year.

What? I'm confused. AIDS without HIV virus is generally just IDS. It's usually congenital, not contagious. HIV is dangerous because being infected almost always leads to development of AIDS. HIV without AIDS could be safely ignored. Thus neither group is a danger to the other. The HIV positive group aren't going to catch (A)IDS from the other group, because there is no vector. The IDS group aren't going to suffer any more from being exposed to the HIV positive group. I assume the purpose of the question is just to get you thinking and talking though.

The Romans failed to properly protect the Saturnalia IP, leaving it open to be ripped off by Constantine for Christianity!

Saw nothing new there. Seemed like a mash-up of Killzone 2, Quake 4, Resistance 2, Gears of War, etc etc et-bloody-cetera. Oh BTW, 'flawed' does not automatically mean 'relate-able' (it took about 20 years for dark age comic writers to realise that. Jeezus). Those characters seemed about as relate-able as, well as firearm. And not a well loved personalised quality firearm either. No; a cold, mass produced, rubbish firearm that will jam up and kill you but the manufacturer made the lowest bid for the defence contract so what're you going to do? Worth renting if the gameplay is good, same as 99% of every FPS ever.

Well it's arguable that viruses are even alive - they don't fit all the definitions for life. They're more like rogue fragments of RNA. They are subject to the same kind of selection pressure as organisms though. Unfortunately fitness selection doesn't carry weight if the virus is passed on before the host dies. Once it has spread, anything that happens to the previous host is irrelevant. Since a patient can be HIV positive for some time before developing AIDS, combined with high rate of infection... well it's a sad combination, one that means the virus is under no pressure to evolve further - it's doing just fine. Of course it might mutate randomly, but don't hold your breath. More likely is that limited resistance will evolve in humans first.

Miffy! Patters! A double whammy of birthday goodness. Enjoy!

Idle Thumbs is awesome That is all. (I would ask for the game, except that I'm not sure my broken-ass PC could even run it at the moment. Also I'm not sure it's the kind of thing that would keep me playing for very long. Still awesome though.)

I love you Toblix. But I don't have a 360.