Will H

I feel like I'm being blinded by the bit that says 'graphical update'. I'm a graphics [bleep], but I play Runescape. How about that. EDIT: Blah, I figured that wouldn't get through. Oh, you guys know what I mean.

Yes. Yes we do. Nothing attracts the ladies more than a finely woven gold-embossed strip of finest silk flowing down your back. You should all be jealous. And how are you gonna protect a lady? With a cape? A sword i say- Are you insinuating that I travel amongst the lower classes without my rapier? Pah!

Questions for a Canadian: How did a minority government work out, and are the Canadian Conservatives like the British Conservatives?

Yes. Yes we do. Nothing attracts the ladies more than a finely woven gold-embossed strip of finest silk flowing down your back. You should all be jealous.

The result will be a NO if opinion polls and betting odds are anything to go by, it always was right from the start. The battle here really is how decisive it will be. If it's close, and especially if there's a low turnout, this won't be the last we see of the electoral reform debate.

How is wanting a fairer voting system stupid? And electoral college? Don't make me laugh, they're are so many things wrong with that system. Well, some people don't think it's a fairer system, so they think it's stupid. Reasonable logic, but this thread is about debating whether it's a fairer system or not in the first place. I do agree with you on the electoral college though, the last thing we need is to see the American political system as something to aspire to.

No it wasn't, the reason it was chosen was because it was a very clear demand by the Liberal Democrats when the 2010 election produced a hung parliament, when the Coalition Agreement had to be drafted. The referendum wasn't planned by the Tories at all, they just reluctantly agreed when the alternative was a minority government or a weird Lab-Lib coalition that the public would be really unlikely to accept, and the referendum would have happened anyway.

The problem is that it's not that easy getting one. For alot of people, the question is what to get before neck, rather than how to get one. Oh. I thought they were relatively common. I've already seen two I could have had, but none of us in the team had over 100 Dungeoneering, so binding it was out of the question.

I'm definitely getting a blood necklace when I hit 100 Dungeoneering then. With my weirdly balanced stats (I still don't have anything over 90 yet, and everything's 65+), it seems like the perfect bind.

Again, again, it's all about opposing the voice of the Government, instead of actually supporting a party. It's not progressive, you can't get any debates moving forward if you're just voting according to a dislike of a party without putting forward the arguments of your own. I'm a self-confessed Conservative, how do you think I feel if someone says to me that they're only voting to, and I quote, "get the Tories out"? How can I have a rational debate with anyone who sticks with that principle? It's better to have the most widely supported cohesive government possible with a distinct set of policies than a fudged coalition that tries to encompass 50% of the vote and in doing so no longer has any direction and plenty of in-fighting. Democracy is not perfect, there is a point where you need to minimise the flaws. Could you elaborate on why AV has less tactical voting than FPTP?

But those 65% never laid out a coherent and stable alternative to the incumbent, which is an important part of politics. First Past the Post encourages is a positive "I support this party, I'll vote for them" approach, whereas AV encourages a negative and frankly unintelligent "I dislike that party, so I'll vote for the best way that I can see that will get them out of power" approach. Only when the opposition can unify themselves under a decisive and widely supported argument against the government, even if it is born of more than one party, do they have the legitimacy to become the government themselves. No it does not. FPTP is notorious for tactical voting; people vote for party x to keep party y out despite supporting party z. And just because that 65% don't all support 1 party as first chocie doesn't mean they aren't a majority, a majority who can be strong opposed to the winner. Av promotes more truthful voting as you can honestly pick your choices as you like and know that sure your first choice may not get it, but your later choices still can represent your voice opposed to being stamped out by a party you oppose just because they got a slightly larger minority of the vote. I don't doubt that tactical voting does happen in FPTP, but it discourages it in the most effective way that a voting system can: If you vote for a party you don't really support, you are renouncing your vote for a party you actually support. Short of brain-scans, you can't get any better than that. You second statement proves my (and Ginger's) point, you're treating a vague group of people who's only common factor is that they don't support the incumbent government as one that could be strong enough to form a government itself (isn't that the definition of a fudged coalition?). The sole policy of "We don't like the government" isn't enough to form a government itself. I vote to support a party, not to oppose a different one.

But those 65% never laid out a coherent and stable alternative to the incumbent, which is an important part of politics. First Past the Post encourages is a positive "I support this party, I'll vote for them" approach, whereas AV encourages a negative and frankly unintelligent "I dislike that party, so I'll vote for the best way that I can see that will get them out of power" approach. Only when the opposition can unify themselves under a decisive and widely supported argument against the government, even if it is born of more than one party, do they have the legitimacy to become the government themselves.

Cameron's doing a fine job running the country, go put your senseless political comments elsewhere. I wish the couple all the best for the future, it's about time we had something positive to talk about. You have to admit, when we put our effort into it, we can do ceremonies better than China.

But they don't like FPTP enough to vote for it either. To be honest, If they don't care enough to vote they shouldn't get a voice. So you're happy with ending up with a result that isn't supported by 50% of the population. Uhhhh...

I love a good debate, so I believe that both sides need to be heard here, for balance. How about I make this one into a 'NO to AV' post? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-obZ9OG_XKA To elaborate on Danq's post, the referendum on whether Britain should change its parliamentary voting procedure from the 'First Past the Post' to the 'Alternative Vote' is on May 5th, often coinciding with many local elections, but in some areas a vote on its own. This was one of the terms of the Coalition Agreement that was demanded by the Liberal Democrats after the 2010 general election. I would say possibly the most strongest argument for saying 'No' to the Alternative Vote is that it completely violates the principle of 'one person, one vote'. For example, if you vote for a popular party in your constituency, your vote is counted once. If you vote for an unpopular party that is eliminated, your second choice is then counted with the same value as someone else's first choice. You have another go in the next round of votes. If you consistently vote for unpopular parties, the more likely your choice is counted again and again. To say that the only piece of equipment to vote in AV is a piece of paper and pencil is completely missing the wider picture of the vote-counting process. In 'First Past the Post', there is a simple method of moving the ballot papers into piles according to the location of the cross then counting the size of the piles. AV is more complicated in that, in the likely event that should no candidate achieves 50% of the votes, the procedure of moving the votes of the eliminated party according to the second preference have to take place. It is likely that this method goes through several iterations, moving on to third preference and so on. This amount of work costs vast amounts of money when you consider the amounts of votes processed. It's expensive and unnecessary. [hide=A statement from the NO to AV campaign about Proportional Representation] It is important to remember this referendum is about the Alternative Vote system. NO to AV does not take an official position on proportional representation. Some of our supporters back PR – such as Labour MP Margaret Hodge and Conservative MP Douglas Carswell– while others prefer the current system. There are strong principled arguments for and against PR, and it's a debate worth having. The Alternative Vote, however, is a step backward rather than a step forward. AV combines the weaknesses of both systems; it isn't proportional – three out of the last four elections would have been more disproportional under AV – and leads to more hung parliaments and political deals. AV ensures that the BNP will get more protest votes, giving them more legitimacy, but won't help legitimate small parties like the Greens win more seats (the British Election Study, for example, showed that the Greens would not have won any additional seats under AV). Before it became the principal financial and logistical backer of the Yes to AV campaign, the Electoral Reform Society (who were previously called the Proportional Representational Society) said of AV: "AV is thus not a proportional system, and can in fact be more disproportional than FPTP... It does very little to improve the voice of traditionally under-represented groups in parliament, strengthening the dominance of the 'central' viewpoint." This is the wrong referendum at the wrong time, and risks saddling the UK with a system that even the supporters of the Yes2AV Campaign don't want. Nick Clegg has acknowledged that there won't be another change in the voting system in the foreseeable future, saying: "you can't constantly ask people. Referendums have a fairly definitive feel to them...I wouldn't be expecting another one." [/hide] No hard feelings, Danq.

I'm going to watch it, but it's all a tourist attraction with history. A classy one at that. I don't see what's wrong with it.

That floor we did was great, Torstol Pie really should key more often, I think s/he's a natural. Seeing you get that hood gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Nobody is ever perfect when they're new, but you were willing to learn and had a good attitude, so I hope to DG with you in the future.

I don't mind it, really. Dungeonsweepers, who hang out in W99 Daemonheim, provides me with all of the tip.iting goodness I need while actually doing something at the same time. The unofficial friends chat (it feels weird calling it that) is still there as always, although I don't normally go on it.

I've always figured that the Ipad would be really great for Runescape, but unfortunately, Apple. *shrug* If you find a way to play it on the Ipad and still have good performance, you're doing the world a big favour, and it's perfectly legal. Please do it.

Whenever someone says HYT to me, I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside. We really should do it more often again.

Well, Hex bows are so rare that I don't think anybody who can use one would turn it down if they got the drop. And yes, more Cele Cat users would be helpful, but the problem is how long it takes to switch from 2h to mage with the Cele Cat. Also, fire runes are a big issue with the Cele Cat; you can easily burn through 1k+ fires in a floor, especially with t10 Blitzer. That's a good minute or two worth of ess crafting. But you do have the flexibility with Wind Surge when times are tough, still an acceptably powerful spell when you've got a Cele Cat staff, or other non-air elemental runes you get from drops. Fire runes are a bonus. I do appreciate that it's a big ask to turn down a Hexhunter, but I think it might turn into a problem if too many people have them. I personally wouldn't have a problem with turning one down, I care more about how my binds help me out, not how rare they are. There's already a demand for everyone to buy and make laws, cosmics, a toolkit, and usually astrals too. Surge runes on top will really slow down the start of the dungeon. And you won't even get Fire Surge unless you do fires too. All in all, it's a task of teaching people to know how to use the CSB if they have one, and what to do if not. (I hate it when someone starts meleeing a Primal Warrior that I'm maging, when there's a zombie right there.)

By the sounds of it, you guys doing Warped floors want to get people in who don't use Hexhunters, since so many of you have them now. I think a change of policy (if only for the short term) is needed until things balance out again. I'm more of a fan of magic, anyway.

I stuck it on my main email (I have a university email too, but I don't give that one out to anyone outside uni) a long time ago, and I've used it before to recover a password. I've never got a whisper of spam.

This just messes around with the client, doesn't it? In that case, I approve. Some of these commands really should be given to all players, zooming out looked really nice.

Nah. Gen Discussion focuses mainly on the current trends. Lately the trend has been to focus on botting in general :) When a new topic pops up there will be made posts about that, and thats pretty much how gen discussion works hehe. So why isn't this part of a larger thread about botting in general? This thread is about a dumb bit of information using the same method FailBlog uses to get a cheap laugh. Hardly a trending topic. It's relevance should be exposed in relation with other bits of information.