James

Note Dylan's majestic arc in the distance at the beginning of the third clip.

Me too. It was almost balletic. There now follows a series of instructional videos on the proper use of fire engines:

I'm sure those are both fine recommendations, but I'd rather not have to 1) pay much, and 2) pirate anything. I used to use a not-entirely-legal copy of Sony Vegas, which worked great, but then it stopped working and I developed a stupid conscience regarding copyright. I've been trying to use Lightworks, but that's a bugger about codecs and resolutions, and takes forever to transcode anything more than a minute or so. I've also tried Blender on the recommendation of a co-worker, but that's set up for 3D editing and therefore has perplexing key bindings, doesn't show timecodes by default (though I imagine that can be changed), a imported the audio nd video at different lengths. Nothing insurmountable, but more than I can be bothered with whenever I decide to edit some video. Anyway, I'd better sort something out, because this bloody stuff is consuming masses of space.

Dumb videos? Sorry about the voice chat. I'll try that Virtual Audio Cable thing next time. How a couple more? Sorry that they're not edited very well (e.g. the audio doesn't fade). I've been having trouble finding suitable video editing software, so as a temporary measure I've been using Avidemux, which does work and in a relatively practical timeframe, but is quite rudimentary. Also, sorry for repeatedly interrupting Lu in that last one. I was enjoying my own antics rather too much, I'm afraid.

I'm coming to realize that I really enjoy futuristic fictional-universe adverts. This, the Prometheus teasers, the MGS4 PMC adverts; all gold.

I have this game.

I work with a Filipino guy. I'll check whether he knows you.

There's a really depressing thread in the comments where someone criticises the poem for promoting a negative world view, apparently completely oblivious to how insensitive that is. Then the conversation gets wrapped up in people being short with one another and calling out as bad arguments things that were clearly never meant as arguments and it all becomes a horrible quagmire. The poem itself was powerful stuff, though.

They joked about it in the early stages, but I do actually require that someone make a novel out of this. No, wait, The Saga of Ragnar. Does anyone speak Old Norse?

Regardless of whether or not it's justified, I find it rather too upsetting to be comical.

I pretty much agree with all of that. I guess what kind of annoyed me was that it was spoiled in the midst of complaining about a spoiler. That's pretty stupid. But yes, I really have no excuse for not having played it yet, and I suppose there's a good chance I would have had it spoiled for me by the card anyway whenever I do eventually get around to playing it. I wouldn't say "questionable", just more recent. Both forms are thoroughly well-established.

I would certainly be up for some more. Monday works fairly well for me because I'm slightly more likely to have to work late, so I don't generally have anything else arranged. It might be an idea to try a few different days and times to see what suits the most people, though. Or we could try to work that out with words. Or we could just stick to this; that's fine, too.

While hastily trying to get Mumble set up, I noticed some text-to-speecj options. Does that work for chat? If so, we could have robot Oliver Twist asking us for invitations. That might be good.

Hey guys, check out what the ground texture looks like with everything set to medium: In retrospect, I probably should have used the replay feature to try and get Miffy's angle, but I don't know how any of that stuff works. Can you tag a clip to keep then come back to it later? And what is the button? I could look the answers to both of these questions up quite easily. AND YET I DON'T. Anyway, that was a great session. It's kind of weird how much like old times it was. I thought that moment might have passed for good. Addendum:

Sounds like catharsis to me.

This Year Collection have several Giant Bomb collections that are pretty good. I've listened through them all a couple of times. They also have some of Gamespot's Hotspot podcast from back when the Giant Bomb guys were still there.

While dying so soon after marrying is bitterly, bitterly cruel, at least it was after. Several people have been posting photos from the wedding and he looks so consistently ecstatic I can't help but find it heart-warming and joyful. It's absolutely gutting that he was to die so soon after, but at least he got to experience that, and those close to him have such exuberant parting memories. Small consolation, of course, but perhaps it's something. I don't know.

The TF2 hats thing has already taught me never to accept friend requests from anyone I don't recognize and don't share any groups with. I think it's kind of shitty that your Steam level influences you friend list size (not that I've heard of that being a problem for anyone). I, like some others in this thread, am not entirely comfortable with how this could potentially prey on people's irrational desire to increase arbitrary numbers, as well as being a fun trading game for others. I'm pretty positive some people are putting stuff into this without really enjoying it. The reason I'm so certain is that when I first saw this Steam level stuff show up, my immediate reaction was "hey, why is mine lower than everyone else's, I've had this account for ages and have far too many games". I read what it was about, and there was a moment where I considered pursuing the trading card metagame just to push up that stupid number, but thankfully I realized that that's not at all something I'd find fulfilling. Of course, anyone with the capacity to pay for stuff on Steam should be old and responsible enough to decide for themselves whether they want to put time and money into this thing, so in that sense I guess it's all fine. If I'd decided to put my time and money into it, that would have been my own dumb choice (to be clear: only dumb because on some level I knew I wouldn't get anything out of it). Still, it's hard not to see a cynical side to it.

No, me too. Colourful story, great stuff!

If I go to sleep with my head resting on my hand, I always have a really weird dream involving me being stuck, often in bed, with something strange happening like someone coming into my room or me getting pulled into a cavern in my bed or one of my cats being alive again and on my bed. Then I wake up and am slightly annoyed. Other than that, I really enjoy when I have hilariously mundane-but-specific dreams, like the dream I had at university that I had to borrow some socks from one of my friends, but I couldn't tell anyone because they were special police socks and he wasn't supposed to lend them out. And the socks were actual real socks, except in reality they were mine. And that friend was planning on joining the police, which he has since done. I'm kind of delighted at how boring my subconscious thoughts are.

You may be right. As a relative outsider to religion (I used to be an Anglican, but only by default), I find it kind of strange how flexible people's religious beliefs are. If people's beliefs are so subject to what they find personally palatable, doesn't that make them question whether this really is a teaching from on high? Is the idea that it feels right because God makes it feel right? I guess with sufficient determination you can explain anything away. I suppose an important factor is how much attention is actually paid to scripture and traditional teachings, and how many people are pretty much attached to a religion because they haven't put too much thought into it. (That's probably an unfair characterization.) While there's a lot of truth to what you say, I think religion dropping from society completely is a very different thing than atheism taking more of a hold. I'd have thought (and this is totally armchair speculation) that religious observance might reduce somewhat, but would settle at a relative equilibrium somewhere. And thinking about it, when it does so, presumably a greater proportion of the people remaining will be more fundamental and less flexible in their beliefs. Could the absence of more moderate voices in fact end up having a detrimental effect? Or am I just a horrendous pessimist? Funnily enough, I'm currently reading a book called The Net Delusion, which questions technology's place in social and political change, with particular emphasis on the Internet. Of course technology is significant to social change, but according to Morozov its influence isn't absolute, and it isn't universally positive or even necessarily entirely predictable. He's pretty critical of the idea that simply giving people Internet access will automatically lead them to more enlightened and socially progressive attitudes. For many it just promotes complacency. The Internet is also a powerful tool for propaganda, intimidation and surveillance, and it can be used just as effectively to mobilize socially regressive groups as progressive ones. I couldn't tell you precisely how right he is, but I am at least cautious of utopian interpretations of the Internet's place in society. Despite all this miserable grumbling, I'm not entirely pessimistic. I'm just not entirely sold on the idea that because we have the Internet now people will finally stop turning to the supernatural to explain all of life's unanswered questions, or stop being disturbed by the unfamiliar or the different or whatever it is that drives all the hate. Things are getting better, but it could take a very long time. Also, I don't know, all of what I've said might be complete horseshit.

An idea I forgot to mention in my earlier post: how about if churches are only allowed to be selective about stuff if they forfeit any privileged status, such as being registered as a charity? I don't know. I'd absolutely love for all churches to offer everything to everyone, but what if that genuinely does conflict with the fundamental principles of the region? Do we demand that those principles are ignored or revised? Isn't that a bit absurd? Should we just hope that the religious majority comes around to our way of thinking (if it hasn't already) and that the issue just kind of fades away? Removing all this discrimination would clearly be beneficial for society, but does doing so require that we undermine religion's place in society? Should we even be concerned with that? Is it at all practical to do so? I used to be convinced that that was just around the corner, along with the decline of the monarchy, but now I feel like cultural inertia is probably a much stronger force than either of those things could foreseeably surmountI'm feeling increasingly bad about trampling what should be a celebration with my rubbish musings and uncertainty. Sorry! This is still great news and everyone should feel great about it!

OK, I probably didn't think my post through very clearly. Sorry if I said something dumb enough to irritate or upset. It was very late at night and I was and am quite stupid. I'll try to think this through a bit more thoroughly: First and foremost, it's paramount that the law treat everyone equally regardless of sexuality. As such, no institution should be denied anyone based on their sexuality. Do churches have the right to refuse to marry heterosexual couples for arbitrary reasons? If they're obliged to marry eligible couples (as the Church of England is in the UK, regardless of the couples' religious observance), that should include homosexual couples. Again, the law should make no distinction. I'm finding it very difficult to resolve the question of whether you can require a church to offer things counter to its holy text – or some interpretation of it – forbids (no matter how shitty). If a religion turned people away on the basis of race, that would seem pretty atrocious, but once the law starts undermining the principles of the religion itself, it kinds of makes the whole thing seem like a weird sham. It's far too big and thorny an issue for me to have any hope at. Of course, religions aren't monoliths, and there's plenty of variance within each. Perhaps the approach should be that any church (or priest or whatever) should be able to marry gay couples and be legally protected from any potential consequences (such as dismissal or excommunication). I don't know, that still seems unsatisfactory. I guess I'm not going to solve the whole issue all on my own right now. I still feel like I'm not achieving much clarity of thought. I hope people with better brains than mine are making all the actual decisions. I also hope I haven't made the thread rubbish.

Just to be clear of what you guys (Ben X and Nachimir) are proposing: all the legal stuff gets transferred to civil partnerships, and marriage ceases to be officially recognized by the law and the government, right? In which case, anyone can decide whether or not they're married entirely at will (unless you have to also be in a civil partnership to be married). I'm kind of fine with that – it's up to people to decide whether they care what a particular church thinks, for example. The reason I ask is because leaving any part of the system closed to people based on their sexuality would still be excluding people and therefore send out all the same unhelpful messages about gay people's place in society. It doesn't really matter whether there's any material benefit to it or not. If a particular church doesn't want to do same-sex ceremonies, I guess that's their prerogative (after all, you can't exactly legislate some hypothetical almighty), but the prospect should be open to everyone. I'm guessing we're on the same page, but I feel like it's the sort of detail that warrants being painfully clear about. Anyway, Philosophy Bites had an interesting episode concerning same-sex marriage recently. Listen to it! Also, congratulations to everyone this whole thing affects. It's always heartening to see actual visible social progress.

This one: