Nachimir

I'm afraid the guest list is full, but if any of you are considering buying tickets for Bit of Alright, you should definitely PM me first. Edit: Also, likely to be around London for the whole weekend.

"There is no bad weather, just bad clothes". <-- totally true.

Edit: Ah, it might be a bit much for 10 year olds. At the games night I run, we find that once new players have been shown how a turn works, Dominion is pretty simple at heart. Sure, if you want to work out a winning strategy it's a very complex one, and likewise trying to balance your deck so it's not overstuffed with anything is really difficult, but even experienced players sometimes have trouble with that. The core mechanics are pretty simple and new players tend to enjoy it. King of Tokyo is probably good for them. Colourful, funny, all about monsters stamping on cities and each other. They'd probably lap that up.

I feel as awkwardly bleak about this as I do about metals like coltan ore, needed for mobile phones, coming from warring areas of Africa. It's not just owning a phone or a laptop, or particular companies. It's threaded really deeply into all of the infrastructure our lives are based on. I think a lot of people who gain awareness of the problem kind of just mentally stare and blink. I find it hard to think of an adequate response that isn't "Become a hermit".

Excellent ideas Ben, especially protesting a metre in front of the camera I just reread this. TP, I really didn't mean it to sound so harsh to you. Just them.

I'd really like this idea, if it didn't imply more kids growing up with ideological shit shoved down their throats constantly. Twats. Maybe an "ABORTION IS AWESOME" (perhaps the wording needs a tweak) counter protest to drown them out in this style Did anyone see the recent "Until Abortion Ends" campaign? It was full of people like this: UuOL8uzxJWY Here's what my friend Paul did for it: G85qNhJeBcw

Miffy, I think this might interest you (and anyone else intersted in cinema projection): http://astortheatreblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/what-happened-last-night/ tl;dr "Fucking DRM".

That link features a large black oblong that says: "The video you are trying to watch is no longer available". Are they satirising the MPAA or something?

Congrats, I hope you find it easy this time to stay at your target weight. Even four miles a day will do amazing things for you; I've got good half marathon times but never got up to 10 a day. Sounds like you're doing it responsibly. Overtraining is horrible; those few weeks of repair where you wake up feeling exhausted and your muscles just won't stop aching are so frustrating.

If you'd like some BBC style balance for that Ayn Rand, here's a very left wing antidote that the Wired article above reminded me of: Lockpick Pornography. It's about people who write gay propaganda for children, then break into schools to surreptitiously place it in the libraries.

That is wonderful

I used Ubuntu for about six months. I didn't swear at my computer less.

One of my obsessions, which I don't mention much here, is manufacturing. Given the recent hoohah about SOPA and PIPA, and The Pirate Bay adding a category for objects, I wrote a thing about it all: http://functional-autonomy.net/blog/?p=637

Guitars are like mountain bikes. The correct number to own can be expressed as N-1, with N being the number of guitars it would take for your partner to leave you.

I once studied permissions as part of an NT4 network admin course, though it was a very long time ago and I've forgotten most of it. Also, when it came to individual little bits of the OS the lecturer kept saying stuff like "This is another one of those stupid things that's a bit like voodoo magic. You can bang your head against it for hours and then it may start working for no obvious reason".

There are some really horrible problems between UAC and permissions. Just yesterday, I ran into a permissions problem while troubleshooting something on my Dad's PC, and even with permissions set correctly it wouldn't allow a file to be copied. After googling, I found turning UAC off usually helps, but even that didn't work. Ran out of time before I could try repairing the registry or disabling anti-virus, so after an hour or so of fiddling and swearing for what should have been a simple fix, the problem is still unsolved (and UAC back on). Until yesterday, Windows 7 had done nothing to piss me off. No trying to help but being annoying instead, no nagging. Permissions issues feel exactly like the old days of 2K/XP again though. I'm really grateful for the system that Linux and OS X share instead.

That's weird. Ignoring all of the exploding stuff and smoke, for some reason I can't pin down the composition looks like something I'd expect for a comedy film. The plane looks like it needs John Candy or Jim Carey leaning out the window and pulling a goofy expression.

Sorry to hear that Gwardinen, but with regard to Miffy and PiratePoo's suggestion: Yeah, absolutely. What Yufster says is harsh but right. Given what you've told us about the situation and how guy A has been treating her, she's being an ass if she's the one worried about upsetting him. These kind of things run deep though, and you can't exactly change them in others. Ditto on what Rodi said. When it comes to broken hearts, hope is the enemy of your progress and wellbeing. I did the same thing in my teens with someone, and since understanding how it works, if possible and necessary have got anyone since to swiftly crush all hope relating to them. It speeds up the process of getting over them. Hope for other, better stuff. There are other people you'll love.

Yeah, though I mentioned not making her feel emotionally pressured, I totally understand. Sometimes you really need to voice that stuff. Probably the best advice I can give on it is that, while voicing your feelings, make sure to take hers into account too, and show it. Start small by finding out how she is after a day or two.

, especially that last part. I think you're best off giving them some space at first, which is hard when your romantic feelings are probably urging you to do something do something now solve this. Trying to influence things, early on at least, is probably inviting trouble. Maybe just let her know you're there, you give a shit and you're not being neglectful. Definitely don't lay down any potentially pressure laden terms like "I love you"; I don't know what kind of person she is, but raising the stakes or making her feel more responsible for the way you feel will likely not help. Also true, I think. The motives that work within us around this stuff sometimes conflict, making it more complex (i.e. jealousy and desire can create insane double standards when it comes to non-monogamous behaviour, and attraction doesn't really respect attachment or loyalty). Social species with a 50/50ish gender ratio seem to stabilise around pairs and/or serial monogamy. Culturally and individually, I don't think a lot of people are equipped to deal well with anything else. There are lots of ways we could exist sexually, but culturally monogamy has a lot of inertia, and is often sufficient.

I think it was after the 2005 Emmy win for House that I saw an American complaining about the "awful mock British accent he put on for his acceptance speech".

Yeah, it's just Downey's performance I had a problem with. It's hammy and massively overacted, which I don't remember it being like in the first one. I liked that one a lot, and thought it was a tremendous amount of fun. If I'm on my own and a film is bad, I'll walk out. If I'm with friends, I might take a nap.

Fez was running in a lounge at GameCity, and I sat playing it one morning. Not many games are that hypnotic for me It's really beautiful, and so polished, yet Phil still says he sees things he wants to tweak and fix.

I tried watching A Game of Shadows last night and got about halfway through it. GOOD GOD, I've never seen Robert Downey Junior perform so awfully. It's excruciating.

I should really use that preview button sometime.