Profile for Or else o'erleap.

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Field	Value
Displayed name	Or else o'erleap.
Member number	335
Title	Law Bringer
Postcount	14579
Homepage	http://www.polarisboard.net
Registered	Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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Author	Recent posts
AAAAAAAH!!! in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, February 19 2008 09:57 Profile Homepage #12 So there are three people who could have hacked your account, but you don't think anyone of them both would have and could have. And you know exactly how it was done somehow? It sounds to me like you just didn't log off somewhere. It happens. —Alorael, who finds it interesting that despite living your life on these boards the admins were happy to ban you for one infraction. Either they have a zero tolerance policy or your past behavior hasn't been so stellar that the explosion seemed unreasonable for you. That's something to think about. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Congratulations Jeff in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, February 19 2008 09:45 Profile Homepage #14 Stabbing. —Alorael, who offers Jeff his congratulations for a lifetime of games (going by some fans' ages) and for keeping the art of the fun RPG alive. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Is it old? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 18 2008 21:03 Profile Homepage #1 The Prestige was in theaters barely over a year ago. That's not nostalgia. That's an absence of pathologically extreme neophilism. —Alorael, who recommends watching The Battleship Potemkin, again or for the first time. That's nostalgia for a brighter, more revolutionary past. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Getting political in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Sunday, February 17 2008 23:17 Profile Homepage #122 You do realize that Bush can't run, right? —Alorael, who almost thinks that's a shame. Surely, surely he couldn't win a bid for the presidency in 2008. Surely America is better than that. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Poll of the Executive Branch in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, February 16 2008 22:02 Profile Homepage #13 quote: Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar: Impeachment: I would never support the impeachment of a sitting United States president. It would make our whole government look weak to the world. Really? We already look weak, foolish, and filled with idiot bravado and bluster to the rest of the world. Maybe impeaching the symbol of rampant American arrogance would show that the rest of the government has a backbone and won't proudly stand for high crimes and misdemeanors. I don't think anyone will suddenly forgive America for Bush if he were impeached, but I don't think we'd look weaker for acknowledging our problems. That's Bush logic. Admit anything is less than perfect and the terrorists win. quote: Patriot Act: I have a fairly unusual view regarding national security. I believe people should be able to say what they wish about the government, but in turn, the government should be able to tap people's phones and use other extreme measures as deemed necessary. Freedom of expression is a beautiful thing, but it should not be taken for granted. Private communication is protected under the Fourth Amendment, so it's not a First Amendment conflict at all. And whether or not you agree with the Fourth Amendment, it is still in force and the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. —Alorael, who of course must admit that the Fourth Amendment does not mention the telephone (or the telegraph, or the internet) because they didn't exist at the time of its framing. Katz vs. United States clarified that issue, though. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Geology Lecture in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, February 16 2008 13:57 Profile Homepage #25 Sorry. What I said was ambiguous. By the former in my above post I meant hunting, not the specious self-defense claims. Hunting for dinner deserves protection. (I have given up cellophane meat, thanks.) You're setting up a false situation, though, Salmon. A 30 minute response time from the police in the event of a call doesn't mean that having a gun in any way improves matters. You're assuming that owning a gun means you will catch and stop anyone breaking and entering without ever shooting innocents, and that this won't result in you getting shot by someone burglarizing with a gun who wouldn't have a gun if they weren't readily available. —Alorael, who might buy the use of guns as a deterrent if everyone had one. Most people don't, though, so by and large it's not going to work that way. Also, I think areas with high gun ownership and areas with high rates of crime tend to overlap. Causally related? Not really; they both stem from the same urban problems. But if you can fix both with less guns, why not? Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Geology Lecture in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, February 16 2008 00:59 Profile Homepage #20 Given the nature of our armed forces, I think compulsory service would have a lot of effects. We'd probably go to war less, but we'd also have a very different military for better or for worse. I am seriously suggesting that we repeal the Second Amendment, or at least look seriously at what it means. The difference in equipment between military forces and militia is now unreasonably large for militia to protect the people against the government, and it is not any militia's job to protect the people from anything else now. We have a very mobile army. We no longer have frontier, brigands, or other likely needs for firearms. Besides the largely specious claim of self-defense, guns can be used to kill animals and to kill people. The former may deserve some protection, but the latter does not. Amending the Constitution is a big deal, and altering the Bill of Rights is almost as big a deal. If the Second Amendment can be fixed by the courts, I'm all in favor. But if a bad law is on the books, no matter how important it is or how hard it is to change it it is the duty of legislators to fix it. —Alorael, who would be satisfied by giving all citizens the right to bear nonlethal (or at least less lethal) arms. Rubber bullets and tasers should be more than enough for any private citizen. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Geology Lecture in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, February 14 2008 17:37 Profile Homepage #11 Yes, making guns illegal would mean they end up only in the hands of criminals. But gun violence falls into three types: accidental, passionate, and intentional. Make acquiring a gun difficult enough and dangerous enough and you'll cut down the first two categories of violence immensely because those aren't the people who feel an urgent need to carry a gun around, really. The number of crimes stopped by someone having a gun is small. The number of crimes committed by someone having a gun is large. —Alorael, who recollects something Jeff Vogel once said about software protection. Piracy is inevitable, and trying to prevent it isn't going to work. You just need to make it irritating enough that most people consider a few dollars spent a better value than time wasted. You don't make guns impossible to acquire, just really inconvenient. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
2008 Movies you're looking forward to in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, February 13 2008 12:34 Profile Homepage #13 My personal interpretation of Thuryl's comment is that it was directed at reasoning, not style. And in any case, your reasoning is faulty. A director could pick any Zelda game or come up with a new plot based on the standard formula. Link would, of course, be given dialogue. The point is that those games are entirely unsuited to cinematic adaptation. They're not character driven. They're driven by exploration and puzzles and item accumulation, none of which work in a movie. —Alorael, who is still surprised that the Uwe Bolls of the world haven't seized Zelda and done unspeakable things. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
What is better Shapers or Rebels? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, February 13 2008 12:27 Profile Homepage #21 The Rebels believe the right things but do the wrong ones. Even without the instability of the drakons added to the mix, they're still guilty of too many terrible things in the name of the greater good. The Shapers don't have high ideals. They have practical desires to maintain peace and prosperity. The extreme Shapers are repugnant, but the moderates are actually fine. The Shapers are much better at getting what they want done and they're at least more realistic about the damage they cause. —Alorael, who thinks the Trakovites are clinging to an outdated dream. They're the Luddites of Geneforge, and nobody can stand in the way of progress like that. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
2008 Movies you're looking forward to in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Tuesday, February 12 2008 13:31 Profile Homepage #3 Indiana Jones, although I mostly expect it to be nostalgic rather than actually good. The Lions of Al-Rassan, mostly because I'm curious to see how someone will turn Guy Gavriel Kay's very thought-heavy prose into a movie. I expect lots of entirely inappropriate action. —Alorael, who more importantly eagerly awaits someone doing the inevitable and producing a Legend of Zelda movie. Successful franchises can't be allowed to go filmless. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Owchie in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 21:39 Profile Homepage #6 Violence is easily perceived visually. Stupid is a little harder to see when most of the humor is in dialogue. Since I can't imagine how one could call the Daily Show stupid without hearing it. The muffins thing, sure. The gist of it can be grasped from seeing various muffins appear on screen. —Alorael, who thinks the muffins could have gone somewhere truly funny. Instead, that little bit of internetism remained garden-variety absurd and thus not terribly funny at all. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Scope of Ethics in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 21:34 Profile Homepage #37 It's hard enough to quantify that I think two-level utilitarianism is probably necessary. Rule utilitarianism is practicable but inflexible, and act utilitarianism is correct but frequently impossible to actually determine. Two-level utilitarianism gives you the best of both. —Alorael, who of course must admit that this works great as a personal code of ethics and poorly as a general system. If every violation of the rules must be analyzed, the rules are no more than rules of thumb and what you really have is act utilitarianism with presets. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Getting political in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 20:46 Profile Homepage #75 Maybe if we had a greatly reduced military we wouldn't feel so bad about having it sitting around? I can only posit that that is behind our recent military ventures. —Alorael, who would hate to leave G. I. Joe sitting around somewhere where he can't kill foreigners. That's bad for morale! Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
What have you been reading recently? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 15:43 Profile Homepage #3 Gaiman's stories never seem to be about the stories he tells, really. It's the peripheral characters and the world or cosmology that make his writing interesting. That works well for world-building junkies (like me) and less for anyone who wants to read a novel. [Edit: The great niper makes no typos.] —Alorael, who thinks American Gods is just plain different enough to deserve hype, Good Omens is fantastic but heavily Pratchettized, and Neverwhere is a very mediocre story with a fantastic setting. [ Monday, February 11, 2008 20:50: Message edited by: Eggs don't belong on panels ] Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
[PPP] Alas, friends, we look toward uncertain times in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 11:10 Profile Homepage #5 How much is the shortfall between what you have and what you'd have to scrounge together to keep the current unwieldy database online? I think ads might be a necessary and acceptable inconvenience, but they rarely bring in much income. What order of magnitude of donations would be required to keep the PPP piping away? —Alorael, who wonders if perhaps these forums should be replaced by forums that allow interstitial advertising. Pay for the PPP and give the rest of the revenue to Spiderweb Software. Everyone wins! Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
What have you been reading recently? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 11:05 Profile Homepage #0 The topic is dead! Long live the topic! —Alorael, who will throw in The Ringmaster's Daughter, a relatively normal and therefore still quite unusual novel by Jostein Gaarder. Unlike Sophie's World and therefore like his other books, it's definitely a novel and not a textbook. Like much of what he's written, it's very much concerned with the fiction. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Best game to buy in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Monday, February 11 2008 10:54 Profile Homepage #3 BoE is free. That's definitely the most for your money, although if you're used to later Avernums and Geneforge the engine will feel old. On the other hand, if you do like the engine the whole Exile trilogy is cheap too! Nethergate is a gem. That goes for both the original and Nethergate: Resurrection, but it's only worth getting one of the two. I'd say either one is fine unless your computer can't handle the older one. A5 and A2 are considered the best Avernums, but it's definitely worth playing through at least a little bit of the intervening games to get a sense of how things go. I'm not an expert on Geneforge, but G4 is considered the best of the bunch. The plot doesn't require more knowledge, but it seems like there's more complicated continuity than in the Avernum series. —Alorael, whose final recommendation is, of course, to try demos and see what you like. For engines, you just need to pick any Geneforge, any of the first three Avernums, any later Avernum, and an Exile (although those have much bigger improvements from game to game). Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Getting political in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Sunday, February 10 2008 21:57 Profile Homepage #61 Perhaps it's time for a little wisdom and humor from a former presidential hopeful. —Alorael, who invites anyone and everyone to take a look at other attempts at political humor. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Author of 'Rage Polar Bear'? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Sunday, February 10 2008 15:55 Profile Homepage #12 Now I'm curious. Someone upload the installation music? —Alorael, who swears he looked on ermarian.net and couldn't find the old files. He's not senile, he's just incompetent. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Author of 'Rage Polar Bear'? in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, February 9 2008 23:29 Profile Homepage #5 I think my preferences are, in order, the first, fourth, second, and third movements. There's a majesty in the first and last that doesn't appear in the other two. —Alorael, who can provide all the movements to anyone who wants them. If there's enough interest he'll upload them somewhere. Not right now, though, because he doesn't have them handy. Tomorrow! Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Scope of Ethics in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Friday, February 8 2008 16:29 Profile Homepage #6 I really do think you need to define ethics better. Do you mean our own personal codes of ethics? Some kind of societally imposed code? The branch of philosophy? —Alorael, who believes the scope of ethics is given by definition (field) or by opinion (code) and that its authority as a field is zero and its reach as a personal code is very obviously everywhere. Not everyone always does what they believe is right, but everyone always at least thinks about what they think is right. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Getting political in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, February 7 2008 18:07 Profile Homepage #8 I prefer Obama to Clinton, but not terribly strongly. I think she'd be a very good president, actually. McCain frightens me as a man who is almost reasonable but quite wrong with a great deal of convictions on many issues. Romney says all the wrong (read: neocon) things, but his record isn't actually so bad. Huckabee is a lunatic. —Alorael, who also wishes Huckabee the best of luck in the primaries. Also, American politics are terrifying. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
E2: Formello, Fort Draco and Motrax in The Exile Trilogy
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Thursday, February 7 2008 12:28 Profile Homepage #1 You don't even need magic. You just need a party that can deal a lot of damage and not take nearly as much. Guards aren't actually all that bad once you hit higher levels. —Alorael, who even managed to clear out the demons around the tower without wiping out innocent civilians. Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spiderweb Demographics 2008 in General
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Wednesday, February 6 2008 19:45 Profile Homepage #107 Personal cowardice is draft dodging, although I don't actually object to anyone getting out of a senseless, vicious, wrong war. Choosing to attack the wartime valor of those who did serve afterwards is despicable, though. Standing up to terrorists doesn't take courage. Bush isn't really in much personal danger from it, after all, and he enjoyed immense international support in doing so. The "liberal media" has never objected to fighting terrorism except in its lunatic fringe. Botching the war on terror by confusing it with a war in Iraq lost him goodwill and everything but the conservative media. [Edit: I didn't fail to remove a double negative.] —Alorael, who doesn't think the line between standing up for one's convictions courageously and being idiotically, stubbornly single-minded in pursuit of the wrong goals is particularly fine. [ Thursday, February 07, 2008 12:30: Message edited by: Flak to ] Posts: 14579 \| Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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