Randox

If possible, put it in the garage possibly with a portable heater aimed at the engine to keep it nice and toasty through the night. Pity gasoline engines never come with an injection port for Ether (which is an acceptable way to help a commercial diesel engine get going with a bang). You could try to heat it outside as well. Might do well enough to give it some help in the morning.

I was the other way around. The skin to me was well done enough to almost simulate having pores, and the armour itself was absolutely fantastic to the point where the ones not showing any skin could almost have been actual people wearing actual armour. The environment on the other hand, particularly the rocks, was really good, but the texture seems a little off. Either way, I'd be happy to watch a movie with that level of animation. I'd still like to see the actual game though, since that trailer provides absolutely no information. And most all games have a combat triangle or sorts. There are precious few games where no unit has any advantages over any other unit. That said, some games do have a certain elegance to it. One of my favourites are the mages of Baldur's Gate, and D&D in general. A low leveled mage is a delicate flower to be protected by the party, particularly the melee units keeping the other side from attacking the mage. Late game when you mage is leveled up and has some decent gear, it becomes a dominating force on the battle field often protecting everyone else by ensuring that magical attacks from the enemies don't kill everyone instantly, and occasionally casting gate before running very far, very fast, in the more hopeless situations.

While not normally a huge fan of most dystopia, the Giver is quite excellent in my opinion. I remember my mother reading that one to me when I was little (that would have been around when I was 10 though), and the fact I can actually remember most of the book as read to me by her counts as high praise. It's one of only a small handful I remember in so much detail. If you like it, there are apparently 3 more books (the fourth came out last year, just finding out about it now). I've read the next one, Gather Blue a few times, and it is easily my favourite of the three I read, and I think I need to read Messenger (#3) again, as I've forgotten too much of it now. Once I'm back up to speed, I need to read Son. And speaking of books that were read to me that I really enjoyed, the Dark is Rising series (fantasy) is one of my two favourite series from childhood, along with the Shadow Children series (dystopian). My all time favourite series though has to go to The Belgariad and the continuation of the series in the Mallorean. And maybe someday I'll find out how to correctly pronounce words such as Ctuchik (eventually I just started dropping the C for all the words like that, except for Cthol which I pronounce as see-thoul), and Sthiss, the pronunciation of which I think I actually have worked out, but which cannot possibly be conveyed with the English alphabet due to a lack of letters describing snake sounds. Imagine trying to hiss while saying "thiss" (as in "three".)

Good news all around Maddy :) I'd forgetten how much I don't care for walking long distances on snowy sidewalks. I have a few sore muscles from the exercise, though all in all, probably a decent work out compared to normal walking since your doing more work to move half as fast. Stuff is work to walk in than sand sometimes. I also hear that the public system had a snow day. I figure the roads were in pretty rough shape out in the rural areas. It's a nice bonus for the urban and sub-urban schools being in the same district as a number of rural ones, so they often get snow days together, although sometimes they just cancel buses instead. I also got a probably explanation for why my hands go stone cold at the drop of a hat, sometimes at random, often in total disproportion to the actual temperature. They figure I probably have Raynaud disease, which essentially causes the veins in certain parts of your body (particularly fingers) to constrict far more than usual when exposed to cold or sudden changes in temperature, and in response to stress. There isn't really anything you can do about it, other than being aware of the triggers and taking physical measures to deal with them. I was already thinking about getting heated gloves anyway, so I'll definitely be pursuing this now. Not entirely pleased to have another disease to add to my medical CV, but the good news is that the veins in my hands should be just fine, and under normal conditions I probably don't have any chronic circulation problems or nerve issues, which is great to hear. EDIT: Thanks for the article Ginger. While I am well aware of the machanisims used to keep people hooked, and I'm sure these do work quite well on most people (since the gaming industry exists). But the level of obsession where people let their lives disintegrate around them seems more like a gambling addiction. I figure with any behavioral addiction, there are certain circumstances and personality requisits you require before you can develop such levels of obsession with a game. While I applaud (and secretly went YESSSS!) when I say them talk about bringing in laws to prevent things like the squeal of fortune, I don't think that the game causes a gambling addiction at all. I think it highlights the people who are predisposed to gambling addictions, and would have been at risk one way or another. If someone is able to realize that their obsession with the wheel, or duel arena is unhealthy, better to learn it in a virtual world than in a casino when you gamble away your retirement fund, the kids college money, and another stack of money you don't actually have. On the other hand, you could rope people in that might have never otherwise been caught up in gambling, so it's hard to say what the net is. Either way, I do think the law has it right in it's current format, that predisposition or not, you shouldn't be finding out until your old enough to understand the consequence of your actions, and we can be fully justified in turning you into a pariah if you gamble you children's college money away. For general gaming addiction, I'm not so sure what to do about that. Right now might be the best scenario as long as there are people in their lives who can recognize when things are out of control and step in, because it seems to be zooming and and highlighting other issues. For the girl who was obsessed with COD, she sort of demonstrated that if it hadn't been games, it would have been something else anyway, and short of throwing her in a padded cell and letting her rot in her own misery, there isn't a whole lot you can do to deal with that, except time until you have a different perspective on the world, and whatever you can do in the mean time to restore some sembalence of self esteem.

I dislike it when game trailers don't show any gameplay, or give any indication whatsoever of what the game might be like. I half expected to see "The Quest for Skyrim, coming to theaters Febuary 1st" at the end of that. And what CGI are you looking at? I thought a lot of that was good enough to be in a movie, or pretty close to it.

I'm not a fan of exams either. I currently have the highest mark in my chemistry class with a 95%, but the class average on the exam last year was 44%. That would [bleep]ing kill me, failing the exam. In other words I'm not doing much else other than studying until Friday's over. I'd assume that if your the highest mark in the class now, you probably have what it takes to score above the class average on the exam. Also, that's a pretty bad average. The only class I have ever seen that in is first year calculus at university which has a 50% pass rate. Today is is -11, feels like -18, with light snow. That's cool and all, though it could have not been the day where I'll be spending an extra hour or so outside making a trip downtown and to the doctors. Still, the food, and the appoitnment, are more than worth it. Both things I am looking forward to so all good I suppose. I also discovered that if for some reason I should end up falling asleep at 2pm, and waking up at 6pm, the result is a sleep schedule consisting of half days. It actually has it's upsides, for the most part I was a lot better rested not wasting so much time on REM sleep, but the world doesn't work that way. Think I am back to a 24 hour day again.

Jonanananas, you should really try the RedPower mod, or a mod pack that includes it such as tekkit/technic or feed the beast (FTB), both of which have their own launchers so that you don't have to babysit the mods and keep them up to date (which is a royal pain when dealing with 57 mods in the case of FTB). I'll just pair it up against your needs to see if it catches your eye: 1 & 2 - This would be frames. RedPower has what is called a support frame, which is moved by a motor block. The frame will drag any blocks touching it with it, and while it still has the one block per surface restriction, you can create an entire structure that will move as one. A basic usage would be a massive door of whatever dimensions you like. A really complex implementation using the potential of the entire mod would be a self propelled, flying, drilling platform which can drill down into the world and collect the blocks it breaks (I've seen one in action. It doesn't fly very fast, but it can drill down a 3x4 hole to the bottom in only a couple minutes, storing it all in chests on board). I'm not sure of the exact extent to what blocks the frame can actually move, but it should be able to deal with just about anything from the redpower and vanilla item selection. And frames have a piece that can be added to keep that surface from grabbing things, otherwise it would be very awkward. 3 & 4 - This is certainly addressed, and to absolute perfection, with these 3 item types: Red Alloy Wires. Like red stone wires, but on steroids. Transmit distance is I think 200 something meters long, so you wont need an army of repeaters. It can also climb walls, being placeable on any of the 6 faces of a standard block, crawling up walls and along the ceiling. Insulated red alloy wires - much the same thing, having all the same advantages as the red alloy wire, except it comes in 16 colors, and they will only connect to their own colour, standard red alloy wire, and your vanilla redstone wire. They also connect to... Bundled cable - this comes in I think 9 varieties. Normal and coloured, which like the insulated is used to run multiple lines of the stuff in adjacent fashion without it joining together. Any bundled cable carries signals from all colours of insulated red alloy wire along one wire, so that you can essentially run this wire, and then branch out from it as needed. 5 - The mod includes your logic gates, and RS Latch, a toggle latch, a timer (cutomizeable timing, pulse output), an inverted, and probably a couple things I am forgetting, and they all fit on a single tile. Very awesome. 6 - Redpower includes what are called pannels and covers, which are normal blocks cut in half twice, to quarters (these are covers), and if cut again down to eights you get pannels. Covers and pannels are used with frames to keep them from grabbing things they shouldn't be grabbing, and panels can be used to run wires inside walls. You can't run a wire on the interior side of a panel, but wires can fit through the parts of the empty space that aren't occupied by one. Basically, you could run the wire on top of the blocks of the ceiling from the floor bellow, and convert it into a floor space by then building the next floor out of panels over the wires. As an additional, if you get really keen. Redpower also includes an emulated microprocessor (which is only really important insofar as if the game lags, it is tied to the ticks so the timing will always be spot on). It includes a FORTH boot disc in the mod, but you can create your own OS in assembly on your own disk if your really into computers (or download a different OS from the net. I know someone wrote a BASIC OS for it at the very least). The computer can be connected to those bundled cables for input/output to interact with the world. KevinGregull did an excellent tutorial if you want to get into it and have a couple hours to burn (there is an hour and a half tutorial, which also shows off his drilling platform, and a half hour followup). It teaches you everything you need to know to use the computer in game. Now... Today I have decided to give Feed the Beast a try. It has all the main mods I use, but everything is a later version, and I find it works a bit nicer, though I do have to admit, I am going to miss equivalent exchange, or more importantly, the all powerful and glorious energy condenser. So now I'll need to actually get the materials I need in survival, rather than turning all my useless stuff into useful stuff. I'm also kind of sore about losing the destruction catalyst. That said, it was a poorly balanced mod in concert with the others, stealing a lot of thunder. In Feed the Beast I will be attempting to create a totally concealed underground bunker. Much to my dismay, the wireless remote is missing (its there but not...) which means I had to create an actual system for entry. Taking inspiration from the dilapidated bunker spawned in the Yogs Voltz series, I created a 'weathered' observation post, and there is a system where you have to push the button at a certain time to get a secret door to open. Because building underground is a massive pain, I have decided to make extensive use of build craft to build things for me. Not sure if it's actually faster (probably is), but it's a lot less work for things like hollowing out a room or building a hallway through rock. Would have liked the destruction catalyst for some of this, but buildcraft is doing a terrific job. I build the pieces on the surface I want to build the base from, blueprint them, then send them down and have the builders go at it. Also, I use the T42 texture pack, which aside from being 85% complete, was designed for tekkit, not FTB, and is therefore missing entire mods. Still, I really like it, so I also got the Soartex pack for FTB, and I've combined them into a sort of combo pack where I could (mostly adding the missing mods, and some items from the less complete sections). It's quite nice, though I can't help but feel the authors would probably hate me just for combining texture packs. Oh, and I expect any upcoming redstone updates will probably be making some of the red power inovations official, which would be nice, though it's quite stable, except for the frames which are hit or miss when dealing with other mods. As a general rule, don't be doing that.

Different forms of entertainment have their own virtues. Books have the best stories with the most depth, to really get you thinking about social issues. Video games take the cake in more practical stimulation, giving your brain an exercise in such areas (depending on the game) as tactics, situational awareness, observation, and planning. Television has the weakness that physically it's not that engaging at all, though it too has the potential to get your thinking about social topics through it's stories. It can also bring you new technical knowledge, much like an encyclopedia, with such things as BBC's blue planet (forget what the main one is called). Just about everything can bring something to the table. Some more than others, and some a better variety sure. But much like food, you don't want a diet that consists of just one thing. I suppose in this case the 'food' groups would be: 1. Living life 2. TV (aka the tube/telly/idiot box) 3. Computer 4. Books The way I see it, you want a lot of #1, and you probably want more of 3 and 4 than you do of 2.

First rule of using spices: Unless your cooking enough for a literal army, using an entire tbsp of any spice probably means your waging a war on taste :D In all seriousness, when learning to use spices it would be a good idea to at least glance at some recipies and get an idea of how much any particular spice is generally used. Some of them will be a tsp or two, and others will be a pinch or dash.

I hope she is livid with the school, not you. An angry mother is a powerful force, one that can be quite helpful when it's on your side. I also feel like where you live takes school just a bit more seriously than we do here. Before University, the only things being marked by anyone other than our teacher were the standardized tests the school board uses to evaluate the education system (they don't count for anything, it is essentially the schools testing themselves and getting a standard benchmark to see how people are doing and where they need to focus their efforts). Actually, the University doesn't send it's exams to be marked either, and I know that because they fiddle with the marks (specifically, you will find it nearly impossible to score 48% or 49% on an exam. It will always mysteriously end up being either a 47 or a 50, or similar if you have an exam with a different pass/fail line). Glad to hear your teachers are on side though, even if all they can really provide right now is some moral support.

In particular, I was thinking of this moment (among others), brought to you by family guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXfqraKehtE I find the volume of the beep okay though; it's not any louder than the rest of the show. I'd certainly mind if it was in banshee mode or something though.

Wow, it's been longer than I thought since I read this... Don't give in Maddy. Since your chem teacher seems to be on side, you might also want to talk to them, and see if they can explain exactly what is going on, and if they have any advice for you.

Oddly enough, I am the exact opposite. I am quite accustomed to the beeping sound, and I find the effect of blanking the entire soundtrack momentarily to be quite jarring by comparison. I also find long strings of them to be quite amusing if used correctly.

Every couple months, I'll lean over to pick something up and get ambushed by one of the muscles in my lower back (always the same one). This time it even changed it up, I was actually sitting when it struck (I leaned forward). On the up side, it wasn't as bad this time, normally I have trouble standing for a couple minutes. It seems to be more annoying than harmful. After half an hour it calms down enough to stop interfering with my life, but I do get to enjoy the feeling of a sore muscle for a few days. I wouldn't mind knowing why it does this though.

It's above freezing here, and it's not even raining anymore, so :P And I suppose being home after the drinking does make sense :-k Going to Disney (world) again this year, and a quick look at my cousins spring break schedule tells me that my two closest cousins might very well be joining us, which would be absolutely fantastic. Also, the last night we are there Hollywood studios has a couple of extra night hours, so score :thumbsup:

And your wasting it by being in front of a computer? I didn't ruin the pot at least. I was just taking my time preparing the rest of my food, because I finished it too quickly and there was still water in the pot, and rather than drain it like a reasonable person, I thought I would boil it off like normal (got it perfect last night). Steam was still pouring out, so I assumed I was good, until I took the top off and stuck a fork in to see what was taking so long, and that's when I smelled the burning rice and felt the layer stuck to the bottom. The worst is people maxing out the heat on teflon pans. Not only does that burn the teflon, it infuses it into whatever you were cooking. I suspect it neither tastes good, nor is it healthy, and those teflon pans are expensive. Stainless steel is nice and all, but stuff does still stick to it. My parents have a baking pan that is absolutely magical. You can cook chickin wings on it, which all recommend you use aluminum (because you'll need an industrial solvent and pressure washer to get them clean again otherwise), and they just slide right off, no fuss. I want whatever that pan is made out of coating all my pots and pans.

My winter suit is like living in your own environmental bubble. You'd have to be standing in a hurricane before the wind could touch you (which is good because it's made for downhill skiing so that's kind of the point). Obviously having both cold and wind sucks though. Thing is, it doesn't get that cold here, so the wind chill can only get so bad, and it can be solved by turning your back to the wind, shielding your face, or putting on a mask. And tonight I discovered that just because the rice is still steaming, that doesn't mean there is water in the pot, and it's been boiling longer than you think it has.

I normally play a game to bits, and do the same for a few more games, and then at least some of the games from that 'rotation' will find their way into the next rotation. I generally define a rotation relative to RuneScape, using RuneScape as the start of each on, and my return to the game as the start of another. It's a handy interval during which few if any games get played more than once.

-20 is a bit extreme for my tastes. We go to -25 with windchill at our worst. I prefer windchill to actual cold. Windchill is much easier to solve, and it has diminishing returns. On a side note, I want electric gloves.

I'd love a bit more detail on what the exact extent of the weakness is, but yeah, nice catch misplacedme, thanks (I'm going to guess that when they start recommending to outright uninstall Java, it's probably a flaw large enough to sail a ship through). Also, a java drive by uses Java Script, though I believe you need a scripting language (normally Java Script) to run Java in a browser (please correct me if I'm wrong), so blocking scripting languages might still protect you. I would also imagine that Java is in a better position to get something onto your computer and getting it to run without raising an alarm. I'd also be interested in the potential against phones in particular.

In Canada, our club Igloos have central heating :P In all serious though, I'm pretty sure that Estonia is a fair bit colder than the Temperate tip of our East Coast (moderated by the cold part of the Atlantic because the Golf Stream abandons us for the Brits so they don't have to live in Siberia), so the local cutom where the girls wear dresses and shoes and freeze for a while trying to get into a bar might not be an option (I was pretty surprised anyone could afford to be that vain on New Years Eve actually, seeing as it was 8 C bellow freezing1).

For girls, I'd say this is more of a gag gift thing. Not that we can't enjoy it, but I seriously doubt your going to run into a group of girls who have a real hankering to visit the strip club every week. It's the sort of thing that would happen to you on your birthday, not a random thursday night. Also a thought. If your talking to the pretty girls at the bar, the ones whom other guys would compliment on their looks, be original. Talk about something else. One of the easiest ways to stand out is to think about what every other guy in the bar started with that evening, and take a different angle. If shes still there, chances are the other approach wasn't working, so you don't really have much to lose.

The first time I saw that (the Little People Episode), Dogberts voice really threw me off (I thought it was too deep). I've grown to like it though. Pity there aren't more seasons.

I don't know what the name for it is, but family guy did a lovely little sketch making fun of it, which I'll stick in hide tages. [hide]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ursTBD0sZ0[/hide] Essentially, people who are afraid to admit they care about the game in some way or other because they are afraid of being uncool or some such undesirable social label. It's a way to enjoy something while saving face.

Huh, I guess so. My room is super cold today for some reason. I guess it needs to be fine tuned for outside temperatures.