Aerik

^^^ This was a triumph.

I dunno, MATlab is pretty cool. ...except when you try to use its dsolve to do a differential equation with Heaviside functions. Then it promptly shits itself and spews gibberish before totally emo-quitting altogether.

I'm so confused-- I keep my (plain ole) cellphone in my jacket's inside pocket on vibrate-- when my left nipple buzzes, I pull over and see who's calling. All these gadgets seem awfully involved. As for passengers-- isn't the whole point to NOT have to hear her for awhile? The girl taps me on the shoulder if she needs to stop, grabs my shoulders when she's scared, and headbutts me when I brake too hard. Exactly what more do you need?

I added in the Jersey Shore clip to give people some reality, lest the 'man saving puppy' bit make anyone think humans aren't so bad.

Okay. Have fun with that. I bet you typed that post on a computer your pappy built with his own two hands from tree bark and rocks, huh?

Because desperately poor countries are natural breeding grounds for extremism. The leaders of the various terrorist groups around the world may be wealthy and well-educated, but the people who do their bidding generally come from situations of overwhelming poverty/ignorance/overall helplessness. One of the easiest ways to slow down enemy recruiting in our fight against terrorism is to reduce the number of poor, disaffected people in the poorest countries in the world. Another is to be seen by the people in those countries as someone who helps them. So far, Haiti isn't a hotbed of anti-American extremism. But it could feasibly happen, under certain circumstances. Therefore, making a fairly small investment to engender general goodwill from the Haitian people is a fairly effective way to help prevent those circumstances from coming to be.

You beat me to it. Linux nerdiness FTW! EDIT: Boobies removed because Keyboard Cat bans boobies.

Agreed. Pragmatic charity= helping people who could feasibly become radical assholes before they become radical assholes. It's hard to motivate people to move against us when they all have vivid memories of American military and civilian personnel digging their family members out of the rubble, providing emergency medical services, and helping them rebuild. We get to charge in and be the 'good guys', which is good for us, and we also get to do it (relatively speaking) on the cheap. Even a massive aid effort is much cheaper (both in resources and American lives) than a prolonged military operation. May as well take the goodwill where we can earn it.

Stories like this almost make me not hate humans for a bit. But, of course, I like puppies. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/14/puppy-cpr-man-gives-puppy_n_423456.html And, just in case that made you start feeling good about humanity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVWRXZWGzzI Ugh. We need a major plague. With a nuclear war for desert.

I can certainly agree that we DO need to be spending money to improve conditions in our own country; I am, after all, a liberal. However, I will also point out that foreign humanitarian aid makes up a pretty ridiculously small part of our federal budget (google for yourself, but the average estimate is like 1-3% of the budget). Compared to some of the things we find to waste money on, I'm really not upset about some small portion of my tax dollars being used in that way. You can be pragmatic and say that we need to fix things here, and I'd agree, but that needn't preclude having a bit of sympathy for people suffering in one of the poorest countries in our hemisphere. EDIT: Oh yeah, and Pat Robertson really is a vile fucking pustule. Wasn't he involved in some crooked diamond-mining deal with Charles Taylor in Liberia? Apparently overthrowing French slaveowners is evidence of a pact with the devil, but dealing with crooked Liberian war criminals is perfectly acceptable.

Sorry, I'd been off the site for a couple of days, I could've told you right off what you needed. Oh well, PM me next time you need something like that-- I've still got all my notes, books, handouts, and old progs from my last two C++ classes.

How about oily females?

I'm pretty sure that colored is only acceptable North of the Mason-Dixon line if you're actually referring to the NAACP. In the South, of course, it's still about 35 years ago, so their acceptable standards are different. Personally, black is just fine with me, but context and tone of voice are what really matter. Over the years, I've become pretty good at discerning who is and isn't an actual racist, regardless of which words they choose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism Scroll down to the part about the United States. And anyway, even conceding that your premise was accurate, just being part of our history doesn't make something worth keeping. We used to hang independent women as witches, steal land from Native Americans, not to mention the whole slavery thing. I would prefer that we keep only the things which are useful to us and beneficial to the country's interests, not just upholding 'traditions' for their own sake.

So far, it's a lot of fun. I'm about 55 hours into my first (Rogue) playthrough, and there's still a little bit left to do. I'm starting a mage character now, for my second playthrough. There's enough variety and alternative branching that the game hasn't gone stale yet. The story's pretty standard RPG stuff, but entertaining enough in its own right. And the tactics system lets you have AI party members that are actually pretty useful. Oh, and although there is one of those "after you're used to having a gang of badasses, do this mission without your party" gimmicks, there's no "spend the whole game fighting everything, except for this really terrible and frustrating half-assed poorly-made stealth mission." It's a welcome change, since so many RPGs have done that to me lately. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I've liked some of this company's previous games (Neverwinter Nights and Mass Effect, mainly, although Mass Effect was too repetitive for me), and this one seems to be their best yet. I still think Oblivion is my favorite RPG overall, but this is pretty damned close.

I managed to ride at least a little bit a couple days last week, but I'm not about to take my big ugly streetbike out on this icy shit. As soon as the road's more or less clear/ dry again, though, I'll be back on it. My cold weather gear has been holding up nicely, even in pretty ugly temperatures. Now if only the damn thing could handle on the snow. Oh yeah, those ATV mitts have been working really well, except I look like the kid with the idiot mittens. And the collar part accidentally turns the high beams on occasionally.

I agree; not knowing the details of their profit margins makes it hard to be really clear on how they should be taxed. I'm inclined to say that they should be taxed about like I'd want any other manufacturing company to be-- A reasonable tax on profits, with big deductions for making high percentages of their products domestically, or for demonstrably acting in service to the country/ community (ie, donating machines or giving big discounts to charities, etc.).

Damn. I guess I'm lucky, my old lady's just making me play Dragon Age: Origins with her instead of MW2. Oh well, she should get bored with it soon and then I'll be back to the stabbing and the exploding.

The bike is ridiculous, but you get much props for actually using newSpeak in conversation.

Damn, I got tired of the infinite Rust FFA's and gave up last night. I'll probably be on again tonight, though.

A3rik. Opening a beer and turning on the tv now.

I think you misunderstood-- I meant, "Which part of the picture of the girl holding the rifle is more important; the girl or the rifle?"

Wife just went to bed, I've got nothing important to do tomorrow, there's a 6-pack of Magic Hat #9 in the fridge-- I'm about to sign on. Anyone else who has no life and doesn't sleep (if you're reading this within a few hours of me posting, this means you), feel free to join/ message me.

Yeah, but which is more important? A ratio, or the absolute gap-toothed, bullet-riddled glee of an 18-person free-for-all match? I could care less what my stats look like, I bought the game to enjoy it, and that shit is all-out mayhemmy goodness. Personally, I wish they'd just make it another game mode you could choose.