The Gamer's Quarter

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:59 am Post subject:

it's interesting to say the least.

hey did you get dark messiah ok?

unrelated:
i have a pet peeve about the way people speak of pre-european america, like it was some kind of weird hippy forest land populated by angels. it's intensely - if unintentionally - racist (it fits into the whole noble savage stereotype and the white man's burden like a snug glove) and manages to inadvertantly dehumanize what were human beings.

the thought pattern (if it be such, and i don't think it is, actually) it's like if they had empires, warfare, slavery, rape and everything else (like art and language) somehow massive murder and destruction isn't a terrible crime. the aztecs and the incans were hoisted by their own petards (the first a legacy of intensely brutal empire building, the second by dynastic politics and de facto civil war) in one sense; but i don't see what that has to do with what happened afterwards. what happened afterwards was horrible because massive population and cultural shifts by brutal force is a horrible fucking thing. a tradition of human sacrifice and cannibalism neither mitigates nor excuses what happened afterwards.

this attitude is indeed ignorant (i would use the term "fucking insane" myself) but it does remind me of something a somewhat crazy man told me long ago when arguing with a (left wing) third party about slavery and its role in various cultures, including africa and the americas. he said something along the lines of "you'd be surprised how many people act as if the primary problem with slavery is that some people were making money off of it."

he was right.

dick.

i've had variations on that conversation a few times now; i don't get how saying "but it was cultural" makes the sub-saharan or arab slave trades less slave-like (much less how one ignores the profit motive on the part of traders) or - and this is what i presume motivates them - how it means dick about the sheer criminality and tragedy of the atlantic slave trade. nor does it make all kinds of slave trades exactly alike - pre-colombian american people had their own forms of slavery, many of which were lifetime dehumanizations and desocializations of whole bloodlines, moving across generations. so what? that's what being a human being meant for most of human history.

again, it taps back into that whole idea that if people aren't people - i.e. they're angels - then crimes against them are like crimes against infants.

it makes for a shallow understanding of history, to say the least.
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dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:04 am Post subject:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-doherty17jan17,0,7220617.story?coll=la-opinion-center
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dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:22 am Post subject:

apropos of nothing: i'd forgotten what a tremendous douchebag justin raimondo was. thanks, lew rockwell, for reminding me.
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:52 pm Post subject:

i think i've heard you rip on this book before. i always thought it was a moby dick esque literary fanfiction thing a la the wind done gone.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

boojiboy7 · Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:08 pm Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

It was responsible for a fairly brilliant music video, though.

Also, sorry I get back to this late, dhex, but did you figure out how to open the cbr file of Pax Romana I linked you to a while back? I recall you getting The New Adventures of Hitler to work, so it shouldn't be any different. The other alternative, if CDisplay or the like doesn't seem to work, is to unzip it like any other compressed file and get the images within.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:10 pm Post subject:

so like:

"overpopulation will kill us all, except these gentle beadmakers who lived with the land - instead of against it."
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject:

no i can't find the link in that post.

let me go look again.

edit: nevermind. zeitgeist?
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject:

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

dark messiah would have been better if it wasn't so damn linear. and not forcing you to fight all the damn time. playing a stealthy character is pretty pointless.

it's a pretty hilarious game though, it's so slapstick.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:00 am Post subject:

yeah the first time i got tossed off a cliff i was pretty impressed.

next 30 times not so much.

unrelated:
this is one of the stories that convinced me to re-up my reason subscription way back when.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject:

as tax season comes upon us (and all of a sudden it seems like everyone is all fuck the state this and fuck the state that for two weeks or so) i like to peep onto mr. snell's blog for hilarious tax prep stories:

http://www.winecommonsewer.com/the_wine_commonsewer/2008/01/how-they-think.html

oh ho ho ho that's rich.

and somewhat related:
http://www.winecommonsewer.com/the_wine_commonsewer/2007/08/a-different-tak.html
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject:

weird combinations of people i have encountered:

christian occultists;
gay neo-fascists;
drug using supporters of the war on some drugs;
wiccans;

but one of the plain weirdest is the rare - and i'm not entirely sure it's not fanciful:

pro-choice but anti-breast implants.

weirdness!

i want to meet one in real life because i have *so* many questions.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject:

awesome with or without context:

dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject:

another dispatch from radley balko's ongoing series "lose all hope for the future."
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dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:11 pm Post subject:

holy shit

http://www.police
link.com/discussions
/3/topics/7742?page=2

no trackbacks people no trackbacks

dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:12 pm Post subject:

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Ever see the first episode of the Sarah Silverman show?

Cop: "Ma'am, do you know why I'm standing here?"
Silverman: "You made straight C's in high school?"
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

The differences between law enforcement is strange. I have two friends that are state troopers, and to be a trooper here you have to be accepted, need a college degree, go through 6 months of boot camp/training, and go through constant appraisals. To be a police officer, you just sign up, go through some training, and that's it. To be a sheriff's officer, you sign up and go to a weekend training thing. I believe the latter two require a B or so on a civil service exam.

One now makes about $70,000 a year (average income here is about $36,000), basically watching DVDs in his car off-duty for $40/hr. We all second guess our career choices when we talk to him.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:41 pm Post subject:

yeah, i mean "some of my best friends are cops" and my cousin's a cop, and i fear for their safety sometimes because they are not complete shits.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject:

The biggest single determinant of how well off you will be is not the college you get into, the color of your skin, your gender, or your work ethic; it’s the country listed on your passport.
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

http://www.tonywoodlief.com/archives/001312.html#001312

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:34 pm Post subject:

awesome!

my ranking is something like:

ron paul
obama
write in for RAW

protip: root canals aren't as bad as they're made out to be.
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dhex · Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:20 am Post subject:

To recap, in a matter of months we've gotten the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee up to 100 percent of loans up to $367,000, a federal fiat that adjustable rate mortgages will no longer adjust, and now federal GSE guarantees for mortgages of almost three-quarters of a million dollars. No wonder the mighty brain of Bill Kristol looks at the process and calls it a "win-win." We've nationalized the mortgage industry, surely a great thing of National Greatness.
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dhex · Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject:

Is it true that there is some implied censure in the decision not to eat meat, or not to eat factory-farmed meat? Well, given that I have concluded that refraining from the purchase factory farmed meat is the ethical thing to for me to do, then it is indeed logically implied that I also think it is the ethical thing for you to do.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I'm on Chapter 3 of Dark Messiah. I had heard that the game wasn't very good, but I'm enjoying it so far. It feels a lot like Breakdown mixed with PsiOps. How did you like it?
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

dhex · Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject:

loved the combat and interface. found the fighting kind of fun - especially kicking people!

was very annoyed at the way it progressed by the end, though. a good time, but i also laid out 50 bucks for it, and didn't quite feel it was finished correctly.
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dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:23 am Post subject:

for some people high school never dies.

i used to pity those people.

but lately it's just pissing me off. i don't care if you were picked on in high school or that society looks down on "nerds" - big fucking whoopty do dah. grow a fucking pair, or maybe thing about what it was about you that made you such an enjoyable target in the first place.
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dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:28 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:55 am Post subject:

man, steam weirdness. i uinstalled an entry marked "peggle extreme" from windows and it nuked my whole client. man i wanted to play some bioshock today. Sad

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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Musicals are overall cynical shit. Honestly, Les Misérables? Thanks for raping a classic, jerks.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject:

so long as i don't have to sit through it they can do whatever they want. i just pretend it doesn't exist and voila! it does not!

in other news, suharto's dead!
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:01 am Post subject:

this may be the dumbest conversation ever had in new york city:

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:31 pm Post subject:

it is possible.

on the other hand, it is also possible they were being serious, sadly.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject:

after reading this article
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12460

i discovered there was a style of architecture known as "brutalism"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture

how cool is that for a name?

of course it just means all the sorts of shit you see on state university campuses (giant concrete blocks) but the term itself is pretty cool.
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Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

What ugly shit.

I don't totally mind it, though.

Brutalism could be used for the underskin and the bones of a structure, then it could be faced over with marble, interconnected trellises, bas reliefs, etc. Add some classical columns plus trees and shit.

Maybe even embed stones in stucco with contours/frames of brass/bronze girders disguised as logs/planks to make something interesting looking.

The wiki article indicated that Brutalism has variant forms.

I'd extend variant to hybrid.

I like the idea of connecting a bunch of culverts, shipping containers, geodeisics, modular greenhouses, and concrete segments to make a fort (kinda like a moonbase). Then just cover/surround the whole thing with plants, fountains, murals, reflecting pools, skywalks, etc. to make it look pretty, especially if it is further connected to many other structures of similar style.

Definitely click on the shipping container link. It's like smiley-face Lego Brutalism. Smile

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I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:17 pm Post subject:

the container home thing is neat as hell.

personally i've always wanted to live in a warehouse on a dead end street. alternately, a dome in the middle of the woods would be cool too. i could buy a lot of white turtlenecks to go with it.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Warehouses are cool in principle except you need to be able to control who lives there. Everybody I know who's lived in a warehouse has eventually ditched it because there are too many freeloaders/mushroom waste/out-right criminals hanging around.

One friend did live in an old cookie factory, which was pretty neat. His loft was part of the old control room, so all the old giant control boards and stuff (with the switches all taken out) were still there.

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject:

oh i would own the whole thing and guard it with dogs and guns.
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sawtooth · . Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 419

dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:21 am Post subject:

that power plant is pretty boffo.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:45 am Post subject:

man so fucking weird:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2004/07/28.html#a498
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:30 pm Post subject:

julian sanchez comes correct once again:
http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2008/01/rogering_the_constitution.php
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

I really wish that site had a damn RSS feed. Same for Balko.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:23 pm Post subject:

yeah, seriously. it's not that hard to set up.

unrelated:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=1001