James
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Everything posted by James
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You're absolutely right that nobody can be justified in feeling proud or aloof because of their food choices, given all the things you listed. But if you accept the ethical vegetarian's premise that animal lives, and therefore deaths, have value, and are therefore important, that's no sort of an argument against vegetarianism. Sure, all industrial food production is bad, but, according to the aforementioned premise, meat is way worse. It's literally billions of lives every year; however you adjust that for relative importance against human suffering, it's still huge. Much more than a single point on a hundred point scale. Your larger point that no-one should be resting on their laurels is spot-on, but the "who cares until we can fix it all" aspect is thoroughly unconvincing. Murder doesn't become irrelevant when war breaks out. All that said, I'm a meat-eater. I guess I don't buy the premise. Or I just have no integrity. It's probably the latter.
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Eugh, I'm sick of Christmas 2015. It's old news. Played out. Get over it already. Roll on Easter 2016, I say.
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I said near London, not desolate hinterlands.(People love when Londoners do that, right?)
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Berkshire Anonymous, followed by Mington. How am I still the only one anywhere near London?
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In the UK, all that's needed to derive a full address is the house number and postcode (provided the building has a number and there isn't some unusual numbering, e.g. a number for the front door and then another number for the individual flat). They only cover a few residences. Postal codes are good for both sorting and avoiding ambiguity - the longer the address is, the more chance there is for someone to get something wrong, or format it strangely, or show off their incomprehensible handwriting. Besides that, and as an unintended side effect, other businesses can tap into postcode data for stuff like address completion in web forms, or easy close-enough address searches in sat navs and other electronic maps. They're all-around rather handy. That said, despite their unambiguous nature I received two mis-delivered packages this Christmas season, each addressed to different nearby buildings with similar postcodes and the same flat number. Also, areas are commonly grouped by the first portion of their postcode when a quick demarcation is required, as it's a pre-existing and exhaustive system. That's kind of a mixed bag, though, as the region boundaries are pretty arbitrary and were defined purely according to the Royal Mail's needs; they don't necessarily make much sense for other purposes, such as setting prices for things or whatever. Anyway, I'm on the map.
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Obligatory Comical YouTube Thread II: The Fall of YouTube
James replied to pabosher's topic in Idle Banter
That's the most incredible thing. -
My go-to reference for solo loop-based stuff will always be Dosh: ----- It's neither new nor revelatory, but Damage by Yo La Tengo came up on shuffle today and I was reminded of how great it is: On the subject of songs about damage that make me feel kind of sad, here's Blonde Redhead:
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Holy shit, this thread is four years old? One of the more disappointing developments over that time is that the first photo I linked to, back when this thread started, is a pretty good angle on where I suspect my hair is now starting to thin. Time, ladies and gentlemen. Time.
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Amazing.
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You missed the part where the physicist was formerly a member of a successful but rubbish pop band. Anyway, it's a good programme that I'd also recommend. (Incidentally, BBC 4 is a television channel; Infinite Monkey Cage is broadcast on BBC Radio 4. You are welcome to hate me for this item of pedantry.)
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Would that in some way make Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, with its futuristic and presumably entirely fictional weapons, a slightly less unethical purchase than games from the Modern Warfare series? It still has a bunch of problems about stuff like normalizing militarism and so on, but I guess it doesn't contribute materially to the actual production of weapons, unless they're using real brand names on fake firearms (I've played the game, but I neither pay enough attention to the weapon names nor know enough about manufacturers to be sure that they didn't do that).
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Annoying thing about Zodiac MF #2: he frequently deploys the "fuck you if you disagree" tactic. We've all felt that at some point, but he uses it as if it actually wins the argument for him or something. Anyway, fuck him for disagreeing.
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I was pleased when Brad managed to get Skyrim to beat Saints Row whatever year that was, but I've had gradually less patience for him recently. Also, I generally think people moaning about them being bad at games in Quick Looks is generally bullshit, but Brad often gets angry at games for not seeing something that seems pretty obvious to me, which annoys me a bit, and seems unfair on the game. Then again, perhaps it really is the game's fault for not making whatever it is obvious enough. I'll miss Patrick. I didn't always bother with the stuff he put up, and he isn't the most consistently funny, but his just being there seemed like a valuable balancing influence on the site in some nebulous holistic sense, and he seems like a really nice guy with very good intentions. I immediately found myself hoping they'll hire some rough equivalent in 2015. People talked a lot about Cara Ellison around the time of the previous hires; I think she'd fill the absence pretty well (and probably face similar resistance). But that's just a hope. Maybe there won't even be a replacement. I am, as ever, optimistic about the site. Whether or not that's well-founded, I don't really care.
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It's not an uncommon thing, but it's very frustrating to see someone decry the establishment and p0litical c0rrectness in the same breath. I mean, I get it, p0litical c0rrectness is boring and gets in the way of your offensive fun, but its whole point is to lessen power imbalances in society. Don't rebel against PC; rebel against fucked up social institutions.EDIT: circumvented word filter for the sake of clarity.
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I took the "_____ in Action" thing as being similar to "social justice warrior": sarcastic mockery of what they perceive as ineffectual whinging. "In action" is being used as an ironically overblown description for a lot of talk and no action. Alternatively, it could mean "the things we're describing are all that _____ does". As in, "here comes Kotaku, and inevitably they're doing saying something we disapprove of. Kotaku in full effect. Kotaku in action." Those are my guesses, anyway. I obviously don't endorse the sentiments. If my first proposal is correct, that would be pretty ironic given the pseudo-apocalyptic rhetoric levelled against Kotaku et al (killing gaming, etc.)
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I bet they're totally duped by your masterful deception.
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KIM JONG-UN IS RAISING MONEY FOR HIS SICK GERBIL. PLEASE SEND ALL AVAILABLE FUNDS. Did I successfully dodge Godwin? Also, reading comprehension is still an issue: a responder mocks Patreon for thinking "loli" is illegal in the US, despite their explicitly stating that they know it isn't.
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Thumbs up.
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I don't think mainstream FPS games would be a good example because, well, they're mainstream. But the comparison does work for things like fighting games, adventure games and serious strategy games, because they've all been very niche at some point in their history, if not now. I don't think anyone else was necessarily saying that all genres would have a strong subculture associated, but I think the comparison holds for some things.
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That actually reminded me that we're supposed to do silly Christmas jumpers at work tomorrow. Thank you for the valuable public service.
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A Thread For Me To Rag On Merus' Imprecise Use Of Certain Words
James replied to Ben X's topic in Idle Banter
I find that very hard to believe. -
A Thread For Me To Rag On Merus' Imprecise Use Of Certain Words
James replied to Ben X's topic in Idle Banter
Really? I'd say I've encountered it used offline at least as often as online. -
I don't think that's a pedantic complaint. It concerns whether or not people are sufficiently arguing their points, and as such concerns more than a minor detail. (This post may itself be pedantic, however.)
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Yeah, for the music analogy to work it would have to be separate subcultures for different genres of game, not one monolithic unifying "culture". There isn't really a singular "music culture", which would be the better analogy, or even a pop music culture. It seems the strongest cultural identity forms around niche genres; whether that's because their outsider status causes people to want to band together, or because the basis of the subculture is something that renders the genre inaccessible to most, I don't know. The aforementioned fighting game subculture seems very much to be equivalent with what you find in music, and as mentioned, it's troubled in similar ways as some of those. I think it is valuable to try to maintain the existence of such groups (without a community fighting games would be greatly diminished), but they absolutely must challenge harmful elements within themselves, such as sexist behaviour. Unfortunately it's a common mistake to equate the continued existence of the community with the preservation of the community's exact current nature. Kind of like the Gamer Gate rhetoric of SJWs invading to destroy their hobby. Which, I suppose, is where this tangent came from in the first place, so I suppose I'm contributing nothing at all.
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A Thread For Me To Rag On Merus' Imprecise Use Of Certain Words
James replied to Ben X's topic in Idle Banter
It's a proper word you can find in dictionaries, if you want a more thorough definition.