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Man six months pregnant in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Friday, April 4 2008 22:15 Profile #23
quote:
Taliesin:
Trying to blur the line between male and female is more a transgression of nature than anything else, I think. [...] Again, I'm not offended. I just think it's unnatural.
It's pretty hard to logically define what is "natural" and what isn't, and IMO it's meaningless. What does it matter what people do, as long as they don't hurt or exploit themselves or anyone else?

By your reasoning, it's also quite unnatural that we're all sitting in front of metal and plastic objects that shine bright lights and have lots of buttons to push.

Edit:
quote:
Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar:

If he is so sure he's a man, why would he choose to go through the most woman thing any human can go though? I know they had their reasons and whatnot, but a true man would have said "No way I'm doing that, we're adopting."
A "true man"? Really?

A person's gender is defined by their anatomy and/or by how they identify themselves. It most certainly is not defined by their actions.

Words like "true", "right", "correct", "incorrect", "natural" and "unnatural" are completely unuseful in this area.

[ Friday, April 04, 2008 22:51: Message edited by: Skomer ]
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Global Warming is real and I can proove it! in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Wednesday, April 2 2008 08:01 Profile #26
That's my point: I suppose they can't tell whether you've paid your licence fee or not when you use iPlayer, but you're more likely to have done if you live in Britain.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Global Warming is real and I can proove it! in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Tuesday, April 1 2008 20:45 Profile #22
quote:
*Milu*:
In december and months before that there was no snow. This year was also very warm, every day above zero (celsius) and the snow that fell melted away almost instantly.
Welcome to life in Wales. It rains every, single, day.

Sorry, I didn't realise the BBC iplayer was only viewable from within Britain. I guess they assume that we've all paid our licence fee.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Global Warming is real and I can proove it! in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Tuesday, April 1 2008 05:54 Profile #2
Which state are you in Jewelz? Or rather what latitude? I'm guessing some of the Finnish or Canadian members won't find it unusual to have had snow for six months...

No April Fools here, apart from the BBC showing off with its flying penguins.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
The Time has Come in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Friday, March 28 2008 08:59 Profile #17
quote:
Originally written by Arancaytar:

These are, as I've said, good news. But Excalibur, why did you link to the CoC in that first post?
The text about the forum update first appeared in a second post in the CoC topic, but got moved to the top of the main page after a sort while.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
capitalism is flinging this planet apart in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Tuesday, March 25 2008 12:21 Profile #11
Could it be... a phonebox?
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
The Sky Is Falling...? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Wednesday, August 15 2007 07:32 Profile #4
I wish I were good enough at debating to respond to you more comprehensively, but not to waste time I'll stick to what I know.

The debates about climate change and what to do/not do about it have certainly entered the political sphere. However that's not to say that all of the related science has a political agenda behind it. Having said that, most of the politicians, scientists and journalists who argue against the need to reduce our carbon emissions are very easily linked to and often financed by oil companies and others who benefit from our dependence on oil.

Also, even if we all agreed that our carbon emissions weren't doing any harm to the planet, there are compelling reasons for us to stop doing many of the things that cause those carbon emissions. Endless consumer and industrial waste already causes major ecological problems, and peak oil is a very real and possibly imminent scenario that we face. How long can the world's population keep increasing, and how much stuff can we really manufacture before we simply run out of resources?

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Wednesday, July 11 2007 07:54 Profile #10
As I understand it, atheism is having no belief in a being that is god. So being an atheist really depends on how you define god, or what you would consider a god to be.

I can quite happily, and without evidence, believe in the possibility of beings beyond my experience, but none of those beings need be a god. They might be omnipotent, infinite etc, but that doesn't make them gods. I do consider myself an atheist.

Then again, atheist/agnostic etc are just labels. It's such a complex and subjective area that I find it misleading to group people together too much.

And yes, a poll!

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Natural Disasters in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Tuesday, June 19 2007 22:52 Profile #7
There were also those two tornados in Aberystwyth and London a couple of months ago.

The valley where I live floods several times each winter, meaning we can't get to work and the odd bit of road is ripped up by the floodwaters. It isn't a natural disaster I suppose as it happens often enough that it won't do much damage, but you get the odd person who is swept away (and usually rescued, thankfully).

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Being Errorized! in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Friday, June 15 2007 06:28 Profile #37
quote:
Ephesos' error message
Snap. I got that one at work today too. You wouldn't happen to be bootcamping Windows on a Mac would you?

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
To the moon in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Sunday, May 13 2007 21:51 Profile #23
At the moment it still isn't cost-effective for everyone to have a computer in their home. Most of the energy and resources that go into manufacturing and powering those computers comes from non-renewable resources. Many computers contain toxic metals and chemicals which are very harmful to the environment when the computers become obsolete and are landfilled, as most are. As it is, computers are not cost-effective, they're just costly.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
College, majors, etc. in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Thursday, May 10 2007 22:39 Profile #13
My main subjects were Swedish and French, with a little German and Italian alongside them. Also did a fair bit of literary and translation stuff.

And yesterday, two years after graduating, I was finally offered my first permanent job. Sweet! Nothing beats not having to job-hunt all summer. It'll be marketing with an environmental organisation.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
What have you been reading lately? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Thursday, May 10 2007 00:15 Profile #388
Gottit: it's The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin. And no, my local library doesn't have it.

Just finished Xinran's The Good Women of China, which is nicely written and some of the content just bowled me over.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
What have you been reading lately? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Wednesday, May 9 2007 07:42 Profile #385
Can anyone help me to identify a particular book? I'm asking here because there seem to be a lot of sci-fi/fantasy readers posting in this thread.

I picked up a book that a friend was reading a few weeks ago, and read the first couple of pages. I'd like to read the whole thing, but I can't remember the title or author. All I can remember is that it's sci-fi in genre, with a male main character who I think is a doctor or a scientist or something, and he's travelling to a new planet/moon/colony. The book begins quite memorably, with a description of a huge wall or fence on a planet, in a circular or square shape. Inside this boundary is a launch station for rockets and ships, but the description emphasises the fact that while the rest of the planet ("outside" the boundary) is cut off from the launch station, the launch station is also cut off from the rest of the planet. (So "inside" or "outside" the boundary is merely a matter of perspective.)

I think it's quite a well known and respected book in its genre, so maybe some of you have read it. I have the impression that it was written in the 80s, or possibly late 70s but I'm not sure.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Got ethics? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Saturday, May 5 2007 22:30 Profile #13
quote:
Originally written by M.:

I don't think you should be praised for doing a great thing when you did it solely out of an error/disbelieve, which is what I believe your friend was saying. It's a good thing that you saved a life in the end, and you should feel good about it but it's not something to be praised for since you didn't mean to save that person's life.
Re. what my friend thinks, I think Marlenny hit it on the head. My friend was saying that you thought you were saving a loved one, but you were mistaken and so in the end you don't deserve credit. You did what you did with false information.

I think that you more or less did save a loved one, whether or not it actually was that person. You believed it to be, and you saved them. So you deserve credit for that.

I can't honestly say I would dive in front of a lorry for just anyone. It might be commendable if I did, but I think that kick feeling of "I have to do something" won't always be inspired if I don't know the person. Then comes the more rational period of considering the situation, which I hope would result in "yes I should help them", but by that time it's too late.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Got ethics? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Saturday, May 5 2007 02:55 Profile #4
quote:
Alorael:
If saving a stranger has moral value A, saving a loved one has moral value B, and letting a stranger die has moral value C, you've just earned B for your karma because that's what you thought you were doing.
I agree with this. But I'm not sure where my friend's perspective fits in. Of course I think she's wrong so that may be why I can't slot it in somewhere, but what she was suggesting would seem to be completely outside of this ABC scale, because she didn't even recognise that you saved a loved one.

SoT points to another issue. I would always like to believe that any two people are equal, but when you start utilitarianising and thinking about how much each of those people contributes to other people's happiness, their "value" as individuals quickly becomes different.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Got ethics? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Friday, May 4 2007 23:54 Profile #0
I had an argument/discussion with a friend recently over I can't remember what, but we kept coming back to the same issue surrounding a moral point. I don't see it as an ethical problem as such, because it's not about making a decision to act one way or another. Instead it's about considering the moral reasons for already having acted one way. Best way to explain it is to give you the example:

You're walking along in a town, and ahead of you you see someone begin to cross the road. You look at the person and see that it is someone that you love – a friend, family member etc. You also see that a lorry is approaching behind them, which they have not seen. So you rush forward and pull them out of the way, risking your own life. (Or, if you prefer a more cinematic interpretation, you shout "Nooooooooooooooo!", miraculously cast aside your crutches and backflip towards them, launch yourself at them horizontally and land unhurt in the convenient hay by the side of the road. Characters gaze at each other and kiss. The End.)

After you've saved them, you see that the person is not someone you love, but just a random stranger who has some passing resemblance. Had you seen this to begin with, it might have affected your decision to risk your life saving them.

Here's where we disagreed. My friend maintained that, because the person was not a loved one who you perhaps wouldn't have saved had you known, you do not morally take credit for your actions. You were mistaken, and so any moral duty you performed is neutralised.

I saw it a different way. You thought the person was a loved one, and so you saved them. That is morally commendable, and in the end it does not matter whether the person actually was the loved one or not. You saved a loved one. You saved a person. In your head at the moment were you made the decision, you cared for this person, and this is not erased just because you were mistaken.

What do you think? Is one of us right? Is the example flawed? I realise ethics or whatever this is is a tricky issue, and I may have explained it clumsily. But you get the idea.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
A2 Preferences in Tech Support
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Sunday, April 22 2007 01:33 Profile #2
Knew it would be blindingly simple.

Cheers.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
A2 Preferences in Tech Support
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Saturday, April 21 2007 23:58 Profile #0
I've just started a new game in Avernum 2, and the game forgets the preference settings every time I start it up. Screen resolution is also forgotten, so I have to tell it to change every time.

I've tried reinstalling (from CD) but no change. However when I uninstalled I couldn't throw away the A2 preferences folder, as it was locked. I don't know much about that sort of thing so I'm not sure why it's locked, or how to unlock it. None of the preferences folders for other Spidweb games were locked.

I'm on a Powerbook G4, OS 10.4.9, Avernum 2 v2.0.

Any thoughts?

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Need help archiving a site in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Sunday, April 15 2007 09:06 Profile #4
If I've understood correctly, then what you need is an offline browser or a web ripper or some such application. I've not used either, but there seem to be lots of freeware ones for Windows and Linux but none for Mac. Devonthink Pro apparently does the job too.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
What have you been reading lately? in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Sunday, April 15 2007 09:03 Profile #366
This thread has far too much sci-fi in it!

I'm currently on George Monbiot's Heat and Laura Blumenfeld's Revenge, which is very thought provoking.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Be careful of what you pretend to be in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Thursday, April 12 2007 09:48 Profile #7
Kurt is up in heaven now.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Frostbite problem in Blades of Avernum
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Friday, April 6 2007 06:20 Profile #21
Oh right. I just meant I assumed he hadn't got round to making the links to the topics yet, as the topics ARE there.

I don't spend much time at the Lyceum and so didn't notice who created them.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Surprises in General
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Friday, April 6 2007 00:30 Profile #6
Unless I'm mistaken, Ephesos never used to be a moderator in the BoA forum either.

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00
Frostbite problem in Blades of Avernum
Skomer
Warrior
Member # 6401
 written Thursday, April 5 2007 22:13 Profile #19
Lazarus, I just tried to download Dilecia from your site and the link is broken. I got it from Tyranicus' site instead.

Looking forward to playing it and Frostbite.

Edit: Oh and Tyranicus, on the database the 'rate it' links for Kill Prize, Win Ogre and Stairway don't work. (I'm guessing you just haven't got round to making them yet.) Very useful database.

[ Thursday, April 05, 2007 22:23: Message edited by: Thin Air ]

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I think this is really wonderful.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:00

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