Ginger_Warrior

It is the Daily Mail. Therefore, I wouldn't be too concerned :P

Experience in the penguin chats suggests any friend chat of any description in the Wilderness will get jumpy at white dots on a minimap, and with good reason, since it's usually followed by a swift ass-kicking.

Was it the 15-man code or the proper code?

Yep. Pretty much every job in my sector asks for a Diploma in Health & Social care (it's considered to be the 'standard' qualification; if you haven't got it on entry, you're usually expected to do it while working). Never done the course in my life, just applied for hoped for the best. Eventually, it worked. I think when you're in a job interview and you're in that situation, it's a fantastic idea to show that you've tried to at least learn the job beforehand. If you know people in that line of work, ask them about it, ask them what the job takes and how to do it, use their experiences in the interview stage. It's a damn sight better than turning up and meekly suggesting, "I haven't ever done it before, but I'm sure you can teach me!" It also proves you can take initiative.

Always kill the conversation before it dies, but make sure you're flirting and arrange your next meet-up beforehand. :P

Aww... it's cute when the young ones can't take their drink.

But... why? Why do we need them?

I feel much the same about myself. My cultural interests aren't particularly outgoing; gaming, listening to music, watching sports. I'm easily at my happiest (ecstatic, almost) when I'm at music gigs, but my music interests aren't similar to any of my friends so I don't tend to go to them. I used to play sports as a kid, but being 5'0" makes it difficult to carry on ;) Personality-wise, I'm pretty reserved and very intuitive about other people, and I'm all too tempted to "clam up" when I'm around people I don't know. When I was around 20 years old, I probably hit the lowest point in my life, mentally. I'd just left medical school and I had no work history, the recession had started. I had to go fortnightly to the Job Centre to pick up my dole money... it was humiliating. I was very confused about my future and very vulnerable, knowing I had to get a job and simply not having the faintest idea where to start finding one. I realised that the lack of experience was a massive turn-off to employers--I had no work skills, how could I be trusted to learn a new job and stick with it? So I started volunteering a lot. Like, any opportunity they had for me to volunteer and get out of the house for a few hours doing something practical and useful, I snatched it. My confidence improved massively, and I suddenly had something at my core that I'd invested in and wanted to see through and nourish. I think that's what they call "drive". That led to a job, which meant my work skills rapidly developed. Suddenly I had a belief that my work was making a practical difference, some kind of public benefit, and that actually I was quite good at it. In the space of six months, I went from doing nothing and being nothing useful, to learning a trade and doing something that meant so much to me. It was crap pay and I was on casual hours, around 25 hours/wk, so no job security, but I didn't mind one bit. I loved it. From there I applied to university... I may still have a very naive and rosy impression of the career I've now chosen, but I honestly believe it's something that I'll continue to treasure and gain immense satisfaction from for, hopefully, a long time. I think that's the secret. If I'd have bounced into a career I couldn't care less about... office work, for example, I'd have hated it because it would have meant nothing to me. Purposefully finding something I care deeply about and something I find challenging on a daily basis gives me a passion I can show to other people. It gives me a confidence to say in my head 'I don't really care what you think of me, unless it's something about the stuff I care deeply about, so like me or lump me'. On a more practical note, I prefer talking to other people about their thoughts and feelings. I figured it's what comes more naturally to me; I'm not a "showy" person, I let my actions do the talking. It frustrates people sometimes because they expect you to contribute slightly to the conversation; I only tend to add anecdotes to conversations. But most people in the world, as I imagine most people here, are self-obsessed enough to be flattered that you want to talk about them so much.

I have a friend who once worked in pharmaceuticals, genuinely driven and hoping to see the company develop something that might just help a patient heal a bit faster. She was left sorely disappointed, fed up and harboring a very deep resentment of the pharmaceutical industry. If I can recommend a great book: 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre. It tears homeopathy (speaking of industries which deliberately don't make problems go away) to pieces.

I found the second paragraph of the thread article quite strange in referencing health care workers (doctors) as problem-creators only interested in coating over symptoms. This is an age-old accusation about the medical profession, but there's never a shortage of dying patients, believe me; there's just no vested interest in telling a man with clear respiratory problems and cyanosed lips to take some cough medicine and get lots of rest. If he dies or gets discharged prematurely, I can almost guarantee the bed manager will phone within a few minutes to ask how quickly we can clear the bed for someone else. Same problems, same workload. The article makes a good point, but as an aside, the vast majority of doctors I've worked with are genuinely passionate about making their patients better and preventing them from "bouncing back" into hospital again. If anything, we get sick of seeing the same patients coming back all the time. Politicians (almost all the people cited in that final list, even Oprah, have political motivations to various extents), on the other hand, undoubtedly do have a vested interest in making problems to gain capital out of.

Go before the shower. Amiwrong?

Tans blog: Worst banter 2013.

Facebook is amazingly useful when meeting new people, actually. Add them. Check out their likes/interests. Avoid all the awkward small talk looking for common ground. Success! I'm sure muggi has better stats than I do for the success rates of online dating.

It's an obvious troll but even so, a ridiculous criterion on which to judge someone.

Actually, Noodle, feel free to post whatever comments you want. I wouldn't accept criticism from a man who just used your RuneScape statistics to make all sorts of wild assumptions about your personal life and perceived lack of experience in relationships.

We're all very calm for a world on the brink of nuclear war. Just an observation. I was least expecting scenes of mass hysteria outside petrol stations as we clammer to secure what precious few tins of baked beans remain to see us through the impending armageddon. Worst anticlimax since <sex-related joke at someone's expense here>

All this is confirming is just how deeply entrenched both sets of consumers are into their gaming habits. Console gamers, generally, will not be buying a PC gaming rig any time soon, and vice versa. So it's a mystery to me why PC gamers continue to comment on a thread that has such meager relevance to them. We know you won't be buying a PS4. But that isn't because of the PS4, that's for the same reasons you won't be buying a Wii U or Xbox 720.

Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein Calls PS4 'A Really Perfect Gaming PC' Yeah... they're so underwhelmed. Not that I buy into either yours or Rein's point of view too much because I honestly don't believe they're competing against each other anyway. Different set of games, targeting different markets. The PS4's main competitor will remain Xbox 720, undoubtedly.

I'm struggling to see how this little spat has anything to do with a PS4, anyway.

Surely therein lies the point. You don't need to "pimp it up". Ever.

Well, a major part of the update right now is dead on arrival, for a reason that the developers should have easily picked up on. Pointing that out and suggesting a simple way to fix that isn't exactly whining. It was dead content to start with because there's no need for it. It doesn't increase damage output, there isn't a "dual wield" weak monster in DG which give DW any kind of niche role. When compared to the weapons you can use in one slot only, there is literally no good reason to duel wield in DG.

Why you so racist? You think you're the next Di Canio or something?

Don't get why this is such an issue. It's not like they nerfed 2H in the process. If you're bothered about efficiency and getting the most value per active slot, run a 2H set up like you have done quite happily for the past few years. If you want to go all Prince of Persia, sacrifice the slot, or wait until the inevitable update which corrects the two-slots issue (inevitable only because enough people are whining about it, and we all know successful that tactic is).

I know. In these tough times, an extra $100 support from the government to spend on a camera sucks, man. Sucks real hard. Today I discovered that only 5% of young adults (below the age of 30) follow political figures and events, on a national level, closely. Only a third watched any television news at all yesterday. By contrast, 76% of them used Facebook. Newspaper readership across all age groups, let alone young adults, now sits at 29%.[1] I use Facebook as much as any other young adult, I also read newspapers. I mean proper printed newspapers, with articles that someone's spent more than fifteen minutes researching, with editorials, opinion columns. Is it really any surprise that politics is being reduced to 140-character soundbites ("Yes We Can") when Facebook and Twitter are the mediums-of-choice to receive news on current affairs from? How many people who placed the red equals sign as their profile picture actually understand what it means except for some vague and tenuous support of gay marriage? How many people who shared the KONY 2012 video could even point to where Uganda was on a map, much less a chronological account of how the LRA came to power in the first place? Is it any wonder that just about every discussion on YouTube degrades into a (usually factually inaccurate and hopelessly simplified) recollection of WW2 history?