Profile for Talent in a Previous Life
| Field | Value |
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| Displayed name | Talent in a Previous Life |
| Member number | 3098 |
| Title | This Side Towards Enemy |
| Postcount | 961 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Care in the Community in Richard White Games | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Monday, June 27 2005 23:21
Profile
quote:Discuss -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: Never Proved to Be a Contributory Factor to Stomach Cancer Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| The International Baccalaureate Program in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Monday, June 27 2005 23:16
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In Britain standardised tests are de rigeur. We don't have such things at the GED. Instead you take GCSEs at 16, AS levels at 17 and A2 exams at 18. Certainly there are answer techniques that will help you in some subjects, but that's not so much coaching as teaching somebody to write a decent essay, which is a useful skill to have. My objection to the IB, which my school doesn't do but the local sixth form college does, is entirely different. The Baccalaureate, at least in the form I'm familiar with, requires that students take their native language, at least one other foreign language, a science, a humanities and (I think) Maths plus one other choice. This makes it very difficult to specialise. And I want to specialise. I did 11 different subjects across the curriculum at GCSE and got very high marks in almost all of them. I have proved I can do well enough, up to that level, in almost any academic subject you care to name. And having done my GCSEs, I wished to carry on with the subjects I wanted to do, not what the IB think a well-rounded candidate should do. If I wish to study Ancient Greek and Latin, that should be my prerogative. If I don't feel that taking a science will benefit me, I shouldn't have to. I think the IB's attempt to make everyone a renaissance man is a waste of time. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| How did you first see or hear about spiderweb games? in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Monday, June 27 2005 22:59
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A friend recommended Avernum to me about 5 years ago. Downloaded the demo, liked it, registered. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Supreme Court Ruling on Restraining Order & Ten Commandments in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Monday, June 27 2005 22:55
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According to the BBC website, the Supreme Court ordered that a court in Kentucky should remove the Ten Commandments but allowed a monument to them to be retained in Texas. I can certainly see that there's a lack of clarity. The majority religion makes no difference. It is not the only religion and has no implicit right to preferential treatment and if you believe that the state cannot run without religion, you're welcome to hold that view, but it doesn't make you any less of a nutter. Besides, why should the Ten Commandments be displayed in a courtroom? Last I checked American law worked on the basis of statute and precedent, not on the basis of some stone tablets allegedly brought down from a mountain in the Sinai desert to a bunch of bull-worshipping nomads. Having the Commandments on display is a waste of time any money and certainly a much finer example of unnecessary government spending than the usual things the right likes to attack. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum I: The Movie in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Monday, June 27 2005 22:39
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Because TM is a pessimistic American. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| The best thing about the Internet is... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Sunday, June 26 2005 11:37
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It was less stretchy, for a start. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum I: The Movie in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Sunday, June 26 2005 02:26
Profile
The races are used because there's no way to stop somebody picking to play as a Slith, although some scenarios recommend that you don't play as certain races for realism issues. There isn't a class system as such in BoE, but I'll accept that with only a very few exceptions (On a Ship to Algiers and Election are the two that spring most readily to mind) gameplay is fairly similar to in Exile, merely because it's hard to change something so basic. Some scenarios have an entirely different set of monsters. Even where they still have goblins, for example, that doesn't really mean it has any connection to Exile/Avernum since they're a standard fantasy enemy. And a large number of scenarios do not take place in the world of Exile/Avernum. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Old physics question in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 13:35
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Who could? Inquiring gerbils want to know. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Your gift or talent in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 13:33
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It's might not be a useful talent, but it's not as easy as you might think. You'd need to be insanely flexible and you'd have to curb your national urge to flinch as your foot approaches your face. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Just In Time For the Elections: Political Compass! in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 13:26
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He got slightly more than 50% of turnout, not 50% of the population. That would surely have an impact. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Just In Time For the Elections: Political Compass! in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 07:05
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Economic: -9.38 Social: -6.51 I'm several points more authoritarian since I last took it. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| I want to frolic in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 06:57
Profile
quote:I just fell off my chair laughing. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Old physics question in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 06:45
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Other terms you may find yourself called include wagot, jagot and dagot. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Differences between countries, cultural and otherwise. in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 06:28
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The UK has what you might call a 2.5-party system. In parliament Labour and the Conservatives are by far the biggest parties, whilst the Liberal Democrats have about 10% of the seats and around 25% of the vote. None of the other parties have very much influence at all, although the UK Independence Party has a fair amount of support amongst the Little Englander brigade. It should also be noted that Wales and Scotland also have Nationalist parties and in Northern Ireland there are an entirely different set of parties. General Elections are held every five years or so. One votes for a candidate in a constituency (of which we have about 650) and votes are counted on a First Past the Post basis. The party which obtains a majority forms the government. There is a second chamber, the House of Lords. Most of the hereditary peers have now been removed from it (although a rump of 90 of them remain) so its membership is mostly made up of Life Peers, who are appointed as such as recognition for distinguishing themselves in some way (mostly by being notable politicians retiring from the House of Commons.) The House of Lords historically obviously had a Conservative majority but the removal of hereditary peers and the fact that we've had a Labour government for nearly a decade means that this is no longer the case. In fact, I believe that Labour actually now have a majority here. This probably explains why the government does not wish to make the House of Lords more democratic. In England we have £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes. Scotland apparently has £100 notes, but I'm just going to tell you about what I myself know, not what I have to look up on Wikipedia. All notes (and coins) have a picture of the Queen on one side. The £5 note has Elizabeth Fry on one side (although up until recently it had George Stephenson instead,) the £10 note pictures Darwin, the £20 note shows Edward Elgar and the £50 note shows John Houblon, who is not a famous name by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the first head of the Bank of England so they want to keep him on and £50 notes are rarely seen and not accepted in all shops, so nobody else really cares either way. We have 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 coins. Information about them is as follows: 1p: copper, small, round, has a picture of a portcullis on it. 2p: copper, large, round, has a picture of a fleur-de-lis on it. 5p: silver, small, round, has a picture of a thistle on it. 10p: silver, large, round, has a picture of a lion on it. 20p: silver, heptagonal, small, has a picture of a rose on it. 50p: silver, heptagonal, large, has a picture of Britannia on it. £1: 'gold', mediumish, round, English ones have the royal coat of arms on them, Welsh ones have a dragon, Scottish ones have a thistle (I think) £2: bimetallic ('gold' on the outside, silver inside,) large, round. I forget what the picture is. These are less common than the others. There are also £5 coins produced as commemorative issue. I have one of the millenium issue, but they aren't used in circulation. Football (soccer or association football if you prefer) is the national game here. Cricket is played, but mostly by the middle classes and the Indian community, rugby league is still fairly popular in the north of England, rugby union is more popular in the south and growing in popularity, although still a largely middle-class sport and not likely to overtake football's popularity any time soon. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Elections: The Registration Thread in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 04:52
Profile
How would a secret ballot be carried out? It can hardly be done by a poll, since that removes the point of registration and makes it horribly easy to fix, and also prevents the splitting of one's vote that's been planned. Personally, I'd be entirely happen with open voting. I can't see that anybody is going to single out a member just because they didn't vote for them and even if they do, they will be very hard pressed to find reasonable grounds. Besides, impossible degrees of scheming have always been part of Spidweb elections and at least one of them was not a complete trainwreck. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Potara: The Fusions in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 04:43
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Play nice, TM. We all remember Streila Spies. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Elections? in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 04:40
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Yes, it is rather hard to have any real programme, because as a moderator you have responsibility rather than authority. After all, it's not like the boards are goatsed weekly, nor is there an egregious degree of belittlement (and TM will stop doing that when he's dead) so there's only so much safety a moderator can enforce. And when you consider that the current moderatorial team is competent enough, what you are seeing is in the main a popularity contest. I don't want to disparage Alec's attempts to promote leniency but he'd merely change the volume and speed of locking rather than the occurence and with any of the other candidates it would be more or less business as usual. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Hello in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 04:33
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Good trolling takes more subtlety than that and bad trolling is obvious a mile off. LK falls somewhere between the two, and therefore is neither. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Great Debate Live? in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 04:31
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Presumably this would be for candidates only (and probably somebody to run the discussion, the situation being as it is) to prevent deterioration? -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Old physics question in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 04:21
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Lagot is a nonsense term, meaning one who lags. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Your gift or talent in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, June 22 2005 12:30
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Kicking with the foot? Your flexibility impresses me. During a really boring spell last summer I taught myself to knee myself in the face, but even then I had to make sure to lean at exactly the right angle to make contact. Really, really boring spell. Do you just not have knees or something? -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Your gift or talent in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, June 22 2005 10:08
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Shooting's definitely a sport. Then again, if we count a sport as anything the IOC accepts, then so is dressage. I'm perfectly willing to count it as an exception which can be fairly squarely blamed on the British aristocracy and their inexplicable fondness for horses. If you take a legalistic view, however, then one can argue that chess has as much physical exertion as dressage. I'm perfectly willing to be contradicted, since I've never ridden a horse so I can't tell you how much effort it takes, but it certainly looks like the major challenge in dressage is maintaining concentration and the will to live. I'd also argue that whilst Counterstrike might not be a sport in the traditional sense of the term, it's a competitive activity where proficiency is dependency on speed, hand-eye co-ordination and strategy and so it's largely equivalent to a sport. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| The Official Electioneering Topic in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, June 22 2005 10:00
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If nothing else, TM's honest. That's got to count for something. I'm obviously not yet quite brain damaged enough to vote for him, but it's a start. The words of Lucius Annaeus Seneca are sadly spoiled by his ridiculously melodramatic and drawn out death. Moral of the story: practice what you preach and stop aping Socrates. He probably had it coming anyway. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| The Official Electioneering Topic in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, June 22 2005 06:56
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I think we've established that the point of a moderator is to keep the boards in enough of a semblance of order to maintain a minimum of offence all around, but as far as possible to do this not by locking topics left, right and centre but by trying to steer the conversation away from pointless bickering and by trying to smooth over any points of confrontation. I would therefore submit that Alec is, whatever the truth of Zeviz's allegations, and I neither remember nor care enough to be sure, probably doing the right thing by turning the other cheek and that on current form Zeviz is completely unsuited to be a moderator. In other news, I think I'll resign my candidacy. It was a nice idea, but a rational examination shows that I'm far from the best qualified candidate and I've got no real desire to trail home towards the rear of the field. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| General Moderator Election Poll in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, June 22 2005 06:42
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Given that this is taking place under Drakey's sufferance and the appointment of a moderator is subject to him accepting the results, I'd say we already have one. -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |