Oy_the_Great

His "attitude" saved millions of hectares of forest and millions of animals. He knew of the dangers, don't be fooled by the entertainment factor, he knew it was dangerous work, but his love for wildlife was a driving force for the good things he did in life. R.I.P "Wildlife Warrior" Don't get me wrong, I hate to see someone like him dying. But I agree with the others that said 'he had it coming'. Swimming between crocs, sharks or mantas is extremely dangerous. These animals normally won't hurt you, but normally you don't get shot in southcentral LA either. There's just a fair chance you do die. Of course he knew what he was doing, and he knew it was dangerous. I just wanted to say it's no wonder some people die trying to get so close to vicious animals. I appreciate what he did a lot though.

Apparently the guy who did invent the internet didnt make any money off it. :wall: Because he doesn't exist. It's a cooperation of thousands of people, most of them didn't even realise they were working on the internet, they worked for NASA or the Russian space programs. Then it evolved into CERN, which then was modified by a Belgian and an Englishman into the current internet. And no, they didn't make a lot of money from it.

Ouch, must've been painful for a sec. Now, I didn't really like his attitude anyway, thinking he could conquer nature without ever facing its perils. I hope his American colleague, Brady Barr, is more cautious, I like what he's doing.

Well if I can't patent it can I get 51% of the stock, giving me executive power of the whole board of directors and aprx. $20 billion USD in one fell swoop? Because I'd be down for that. Sure, just ask Bill. Stab him if he doesn't listen, you're good at that ;)

You can't get a patent on Microsoft, hahaha. The company's creations are protected by copyright laws, yes, but the company itself is no idea. And a patent can be demanded on ideas only. If you find a new metal, for example, you can't patent it. But you can patent new ways to mine, for example. If I were to have a patent: the right to get others to remain silent ;) Naa, I would want the patent on a new type of energy that I yet have to invent :

I'm amazed and glad that you put so much effort in learning our language! Als ik je zeg dat in Belgische en Nederlandse internationale bedrijven voornamelijk Engels wordt gesproken, hoop ik je niet te demotiveren :) So how are you finding Dutch? Is it easy to learn for a native English person? Because they're very realted languages.

If you wanted it added, Oy, you should've posted it on the previous thread. :( But I'm pretty sure you can already play AS with your fellow tipiters. :wink: Yep, that's why I still frequently frequent (talking about a pleonasm...) this forum.

So you know about Belgian schools? May I ask how you know that? Or is there something I don't know about foreigners and their knowledge of Belgium? It is true what you said though, there are 4 languages commonly spoken here, the most important one being Dutch, then French. That requires good education on the face of languages. I myself can proudly say my English is pretty good, so is my French and I'm a native speaker od Dutch. My German isn't bad either. I studied Latin and classical Greek in high school, but I of course don't speak those languages, I can barely fluently read them. And the Belgian high schools and universities are known for their superior math teaching qualities. We've been proclaimed to have the best math education in the world I've heard. About our ports: the port of Antwerp is the 9th biggest one in the world I believe, bigger than the one of NY, San Francisco, but not quite as big as the ones of LA or of course Rotterdam or Singapore. edit: a little infoabout the port of Antwerp. Belgium also used to be the leading trade centre in Europe from the 11th century till the 16th century, ending in 1585 when Antwerp, the biggest city in Europe at the time, fell to the Spanish. Bruges, still known as the 'Venice from the North', was the whealthiest city in the middle ages, as it held the port where the English came to sell their cloth and wool, and purchased their luxury goods and metal, the Italians offered their financial services there, teaching us about banking and finance (the stock market was invented here), the French and the Germans visited Bruges to purchase wares the Italians had bought in the Levant (currently the Middle-East) and Asia. After the wars with France, famine, the Plague, several civil wars, and the fact that the English took over the cloth market from us, the nobility and merchants of Bruges fled to Antwerp, which then became the trade centre and the centre of all naval merchant activities. Its central place in Europe is the reason why the port is still one of the leading ports. I believe they claim to be the 4th most important port in the world, the second in Europe, after Rotterdam. Its surface is more than 14.000 ha (=70sq kilometres) (and the surface of the Rotterdam port: 10500 ha), 3 times as big as the city itself and Antwerp is Belgium's second largest city. Oh, yet another edit: this is a list of the busiest ports, I couldn't find one ordered by the asset worth of the ports, because that's where Antwerp claims to be 4th.

Can ArenaScape be added to the list? I'm not routing for poker, nor will I even use my precious vot for TAO :)

The new Muse album, again. Probably one of the most common albums in Europe atm, but with very good reason.

I like that Grey Area, as you call it, BMW. It leaves space for hope and it also has reason and logic into it.

Apparently you think I 'rule out the existence of a higher being that is invisible to us', right? Where did I say that? I merely want people to use the lingo that everyone can understand and accept, not a Bible quote. That's because I do not believe humanity (after all, I believe the Bible is written by mortals who did not receive the word from God) can explain that God exists. I'm an Agnost, remember. So if they want to convince other agnosts/atheists... that God exists, they'll have to rely on other means to prove themselves. One of my favourite explanations, for example, is our own existence. I believe probably everything can be explained, but why I *live* and why I live *now* and not 1000 years ago is a mystery to me. That's the sole thing I can think of that there might be a higher power that regulates these things somehow.

Don't forget, America claimed to have invented the internet. But we all know CERN from Switzerland did that. :P \ Oh yeah! You totally took the words out of my mouth!! I've got to either live in Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, or any Scandinvian country, actually anywhere in Europe. But for what I want to go into, the countries I listed above would be the best. How bout Belgium? I guess Belgium's identity is'nt spectacular enough to stand out above the others. We're a mixture of English, Dutch, French and Germand influences throughout the entire country, so it's hard to describe the true identity of an average Belgian. Apart from of course stunning, witty, intelligent, funny, artistic, helpful and sympathetic. Did I add sarcastic already? Oh, the internet wasn't just invented by one organisation or nation, it evolved from a series of experiments on the communication technology face. First, there was the technology used by NASA and the Russian counterpart . Then there was the evolution from CERN to the internet's most known appliance, the WWW. Not by the Swiss people, but by the Brit Tim-Berners Lee and the Belgian Robert Calliau. They wanted to create a way that allowed users of the web to access HT (hypertexts) and developped their ideas into what ultimately became this, our own cuddly web :

Josiesomething - Zita Swoon

Good thread! I too am agnostic, I doubt there's a biblistic God, but I do believe there are things we'll never be able to explain, other than with the answer: "some unknown force is the cause of it". But IMHO, agnosticism is just a part of many other ways of thinking. Atheism is when people are convinced there is no God, but you can argue about what we understand with the meaning of 'God'. To me, the existence of myself is reason enough to believe in something more than this all. Yet I do not believe in God. You could say I'm an Atheist, but others will say I'm an Agnosticist. Buddhism, the religion of those that follow the thaughts of the Buddha, is also one of the religions that claim there is no 'God', they only believe wisdom and the noble truths. A Buddha is generally considered to be a person who discovers the true nature of reality through years of spiritual cultivation, investigation of the various religious practices of his time, and meditation (thanks wiki). So one may say Agnosticism is also inherent in this religion. May I ask the Christians who'll post in this thread to prove the existence of God not to use quotes from the Bible, but rather plain logic, so that we can all agree on this matter? If you use biblistic quotes, only fellow Christians that value the Bible will believe you. To me, a book doesn't prove anything. Thanks!

About every band that I wanted to say that still exists now. You name it, I've seen them. On a concert or a festival, though most of them were of course on festivals. The few ones I haven't seen that I'd like to experience: A Perfect Circle Blur Grandaddy (I'm afraid it has become impossible now :() Queens of the Stone Age Apocalyptica Sujan Stevens (I'm going to his concert in Ghent in October) M̮̼̉̉m The Arcade Fire (I absolutely would want to see them in Belgium someday) Machine Head That about covers it. I've seen almost every known artist/band currently active. About 100 bands or something? And 15 solo performers (with backup)?

Age, of course :) Too bad I haven't got a legal copy of it.

How do you figure you would fish a fish? I dunno, but I assume you need to fish it.

Actually, the geocentric model of the solar system wasn't a scientifical law. It was religion/egotism/ignorance. And you can't create matter. Or energy. You're just a conspiracy-ist. Law of Conservation of Matter -> Matter can neither be created nor destroy. (But it can be converted such as in when anti-matter and matter collide and make big boom and pretty light). Law of Conservation of Energy -> Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. (But such as in the previous parathesis.) The conversion equation is M=E/(C^2) where m is mass, e is energy and c^2 is the speed of light squared. So there. Maybe in science fiction shows or in dreams, but not in the real world. I would go into a whole big thing about this but, it's been about 3 months since my Physics class ended so I've forgotten lotsa. Gotta keep my mind sharp, I'm going to research this stuff 'morrow. That's like a copy of what I said in my first reply :

Somehow I am not at all surprised.

Well, perfection in the economy of AoE is failry easy, the only difficult thing is getting there faster than anyone else does. That's what I tried to achieve. With a minimum of resources (how much is it in a random game? 200 food and some wood?) I can get my town centre t work 100% of the time, which is the most important thing to a fast economy. Also, your villagers can never be out of (useful) work, obviously. As soon as you've accomplished getting around 20-35 villagers, fuedal age lurks. Then I always create 2 markets, somewhere protected, yet as far as possible (more gold per minute a cart travels) from allied markets. They create a total of 30-40 trade carts, which will steadily supply me of as much gold as I can ever use. Just make sure your route can't easily be routed (ironic, isn't it?). Meanwhile, in the catle age I have about 5 stables constantly creating knights, who attack players in groups of 10-40 every couple of minutes from all sides. The enemy is normally so busy trying to keep those knights away that I have pkenty of time to evolve further, get the relics, build a final army and fortresses (I love castles and bombard towers, so I always have dozens of them scaterred over my city). As soon as a regiment of knights meet a castle of the enemy, I of course retreat them elsewhere, aiming for the villagers and archers. And the stream of knights keeps going, until all of a sudden an army of 15 trebs and 80 pallys (or mamelukes, or elephants, or mangudais...) and a bunch of monks and onagers wipes away everything in its way. I do risk a lot then, because a counterattack might be fatal, but for my line of castles and towers, of which I normally have 15-25 by then. I then have the time to cease attacking and defend my city which is so stuffed with castles that it'll take 10 minutes to just take out half of them : The only problem occurs when many people attack me of course. I'm a human being, so I can only truly focus on one side of the city. If 3 big armies attack me on different locations, I'm toast. But I have played against many people, I've never lost so far. Even when my main city perished, I just flee with all of the villagers I have left to the fortresses of allies and other uninhabited territories and start building a new economy with cheap units like pikemen and skirmies :) Oh, one more very important note: when I go in for the kill, with my entire army, I always have a few monks with me that heal any severely damaged units. If my band of cavalry charge, the castles and towers can cause serious havoc, so you must retreat to you monks/trebs/reserve troups as soon as a fair amoun of them are half dead, so you can just heal, get ready to take ou castles with trebs, charge again and finish the job. I don't mind losing knights in the first few attacks, since they more or less just plunder, but my final army rarely loses many units. I just don't like my poor men dying ;)

Yeps, I was about to say that.

M̮̼̉̉m - Green Grass of Tunnel

You only need one 'adult' madman with a gun to kill hundreds.

Me too, I have AoE I, AoE II and the Conquerors, Mythology and AoE III. I think the only one of them I played more than 20 hours is II (+conq of course) which I most likely played over a thousand times. I had it as soon as it came out, and ever since then I played it nearly daily, in search of perfection : Stopped playing it 2 years ago since I went to college then, but I do play it from time to time still.