The Gaming Den

http://www.gizmag.com/mars-fusion-drive/26939/
Solar Powered Fusion Drive Rockets that pulse several Times per Minute to achieve high enough speeds to make the Trip to Mars in 3 Months . . Sounds like Star Trek Impulse Drive to me o.O

So, it looks like the $150K Star Trek-replica apartment is being sold in divorce and the Star Trekky bits are being taken down.

I'd ask, "I wonder why his wife left him," but I think the answer is a little obvious.

such a pity . .

K wrote:I'd ask, "I wonder why his wife left him," but I think the answer is a little obvious.

I don't think the answer is obvious at all. They split up in '94 and he started working on the apartment in '94.
Since she has been paying for the apartment for 19 years while not living in it, there probably is something else going on?

BetterMyths.com is doing the Silmarillion. Which is sweet, because the actual Silmarillion is a really terrible read.

Linky!

It had a few highlights. My favorite was the elf who got hung up by a wrist and a buddy cut off his hand to free him.

Is that like the KGBeast scenario?

"Oh no, there's a rope 'round my wrist, trapping me. Fortunately I have an axe, which I can use to cut... my hand off!"
"Dude, the rope's right-"
"My hand off!"

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Is that like the KGBeast scenario?

"Oh no, there's a rope 'round my wrist, trapping me. Fortunately I have an axe, which I can use to cut... my hand off!"
"Dude, the rope's right-"
"My hand off!"

Not really. If I recall right, Morgoth had a special hate-on for this guy, and hung him halfway up a cliff face, via a shackle with no keyhole or fastener--it was a solid piece around his wrist.

He spent a couple of years like that, and when he got rescued, he first asked to be mercy-killed.

His buddy guy off his hand at the wrist instead.

The part that sticks in my mind is that the dude was a badass warrior, and right-handed, but since he was now Lefty the Elf, he worked and worked and worked and eventually became a better swordsman with his left hand than he'd been with his right hand.

ishy wrote:

K wrote:I'd ask, "I wonder why his wife left him," but I think the answer is a little obvious.

I don't think the answer is obvious at all. They split up in '94 and he started working on the apartment in '94.
Since she has been paying for the apartment for 19 years while not living in it, there probably is something else going on?

If any of my exes paid my living expenses for 19 years I'd have no problems with any of them. I want to learn this guy's secrets of having bitches women pay his bills for that long...

Maj wrote:Fire-breathing Dragon Bridge opens in Da Nang

Hmm, I'll have to check that out next time I'm in Danang.

There were some explosions at the Boston Marathon.

It's important to keep things in context:

Driving while texting killed and injured more Americans yesterday than the "terror" attacks in Boston did. By a factor of roughly 10.

Lightning Strikes kill roughly 50 American citizens every year and injure somewhere around 10 times that many. So depending where you draw the line and how you divvy up the impressive body count of the WTC attacks, lightning is probably more dangerous to you than terrorism. Wikipedia Link for averaging out casualties

Remember, dangers not monopolizing the news cycle are still real.

Indeed, but it's still unpleasant that it has happened, and people will call you a bit of a dick if you point it out when they're mourning (whether because someone they knew personally was injured/killed, or because the news told them to do their mandatory 12.5 minutes of grieving). But yeah, Iran got hit by a 7.8 earthquake, 16 died in a mine collapse in Ghana, and any number of people died today because of alcoholism, or driving while stupid, or any other things. The amount of news coverage is disproportionate to the amount of harm caused.

Meanwhile, the biggest news in the UK

Koumei wrote:Indeed, but it's still unpleasant that it has happened, and people will call you a bit of a dick if you point it out when they're mourning (whether because someone they knew personally was injured/killed, or because the news told them to do their mandatory 12.5 minutes of grieving).

The trick is to tell them not to respond irrationally to the tragedy because of these figures, and not to undermine the tragedy itself. So, what happened yesterday is still tragic, despite the fact that a lot more people die due to texting while driving in the same day; however, we should strongly question whether or not we should start a new 50 billion dollar anti-terror program in response to the tragedy.

Josh_Kablack wrote: Driving while texting killed and injured more Americans yesterday than the "terror" attacks in Boston did. By a factor of roughly 10.

Why is "terror" in quotes? Do they not believe it was a terrorist attack?

Game On,
fbmf

They're still looking for suspects, it seems. It could have been a guy who just wanted to murder a bunch of people, with no ideological purpose; which precludes it from the definition of terrorist attack. With the severe lack of anyone claiming responsibility, unless it's a violently pro-couch potato philosophy, it's at minimum a strong possibility of 'just' a crazy guy.

Josh_Kablack wrote:It's important to keep things in context:

Driving while texting killed and injured more Americans yesterday than the "terror" attacks in Boston did. By a factor of roughly 10.

Lightning Strikes kill roughly 50 American citizens every year and injure somewhere around 10 times that many. So depending where you draw the line and how you divvy up the impressive body count of the WTC attacks, lightning is probably more dangerous to you than terrorism. Wikipedia Link for averaging out casualties

Remember, dangers not monopolizing the news cycle are still real.

So what?

Just because it didn't kill a lot of people and is on the news somehow diminishes the tragedy of this? Sure, only two people died, not fifty, but one of those two people who died was an eight-year-old boy. I just don't see how you can be so callous about it.

Yeah, the shit that isn't on the news is just as real, but so is this.

Almost 20,000 children under the age of five die every day, mostly in south asia and sub-saharan africa. Each and every one of those deaths is a tragedy, as is this one. But our brains can't handle those numbers. At some point, "putting things in perspective" just doesn't work.

Also, relatively few people were killed in this attack, because all the shrapnel hit people in the legs. We're up to at least 176 injured, and within that, the number of people who outright lost limbs is significant. There is going to be profound ongoing suffering from this attack, even if many people managed to survive it.

Joseph Stalin wrote:The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic.

Well, some have argued that he didn't say that, but I think it sums this up.

My point is this: Just because it's small doesn't mean it should be downplayed. People come off as massively retarded dicks when they start saying, "Yeah, well, millions of people die each day, so your tragedy doesn't rate as high."

If that's not what people are saying, then it's certainly coming off that way to me.

It's from a movie, but still:

The Joker wrote:Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

No one cares about the 20,000 toddlers who die in third world countries, because they've accepted it's the way of the world. No one cares about the 30+ people who die from texting while driving because they've accepted it will just happen (and most people believe that the dead in that case got what they deserved). There are a vast number of deaths which happen daily, and no one mentions them, because they're "part of the plan." But when three people die in a major American city because someone planted bombs, it's a tragedy, despite the fact that nine times as many people died in blasts which occurred in major Middle East cities yesterday.

(assuming the Irish Times is reputable. I have literally no clue)

All I'm saying is that the Boston bombings shouldn't be trivialized just because it's on a smaller scale; I don't think any type of tragedy should be trivialized.

To say "Put it in context, then it's not that big a deal" is really douchey.

It's not being trivialized by the media, though; they won't shut up about it, as if nothing else has happened (although, to be fair, I live near the Boston area, and little happens in my little neck of suburbia.)

I assume that's why Denners are pointing out that it's not the worst thing that's happened in the country over the last few days.

The plan is sometimes pretty reasonable even when a lot of people die, Prak. Anybody who drives has probably already accepted that a tiny risk of accidental death is worth having all that power and convenience, so telling them "by the way, people are continuing to die from driving at the usual rate" is not remarkable. On the other hand, people haven't generally accepted that running marathons in Boston might get your legs blown off, so they care about this new development.

Shrapnel: To rephrase your statement, callously: "If you combine two tragedies into one, it's half as tragic."

Darth Rabbitt: They talk about it in Seattle too.