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Those of the forum not part of Glorious Canuckistan have probably been missing out on the Grade A scandal surrounding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. As of the moment, Mr. Ford has admitted to or is suspected of:

-Alcoholism
-Crack cocaine addiction
-Drinking and driving
-Sexual harassment
-Spousal abuse

He is STILL MAYOR. He is GETTING HIS OWN TV SHOW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtAosEp5R04&t=2m51s
http://www.straight.com/blogra/530916/doug-and-rob-ford-launch-tv-show-sun-news-network
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/11/14/rob_ford_admits_drinking_and_driving_says_hell_sue_former_staffers.html
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/11/11/rob-ford-bobbleheads-set-to-go-on-sale-to-support-united-way/

[Ingredients]

On today's episode of Cooking with Remington, I continue the proud North American tradition of stealing other cultures' food and making it unnecessarily delicious unhealthy. Our next victim is Chinese/Japanese dumplings (gyoza), which are usually filled with cabbage or egg and steamed or boiled lightly. Our modifications turn it into a easily freezable, ultimate snack food that goes REALLY well with beer or most other kinds of alcohol.

Recipe is based on this article, albeit modified slightly. It's recommended to make these in large batches (x2 the recipe or more) as they're inefficient to make in small batches (you'll see).





Ingredients

Filling
1 - 2 Tbsp Sesame oil
2 Cups Green Cabbage
1/4 Cup Yellow Onion
1 Tbsp Fresh Garlic
1/4 Cup Carrot
1/2 Pound Ground Pork

Dipping Sauce
3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp White Vinegar
1/4 tsp Sesame oil

1 Package Wonton wrappers (30 or so should do it)

A spouse/sibling/friend/underling to help wrap the dumplings (goes faster with 2 people)



Preparation

From start to finish preparation takes 2-3 hours, so make sure you have enough time to see it through. Making more gyoza doesn't increase the preparation time by too much, so it's advisable to double or triple the recipe if you can (especially considering the end products are frozen before final cooking).




Making the Filling

1. Begin by cooking the ground pork in a LARGE/deep frying pan or pot (like this) with sesame oil on medium heat. It's advisable to keep an overhead/microwave fan on throughout making the filling, as doing this with sesame oil creates a very strong (but good!) smell.




2. While the pork is cooking, mince up the cabbage, onion, garlic, and carrot. Try for relatively small pieces, as large chunks will make filling individual dumplings awkward.




3. Once pork is cooked sufficiently, break it up into small pieces with a spatula and add in the other minced ingredients as well as the remainder of the sesame oil. Mix everything up and cook for the mixture on medium heat for about 5-10 minutes, allowing the carrots, onion, and cabbage to soften.

4. Add water to the pan (exact amount depends on your size of pan) enough to almost submerge the mixture. Increase heat to medium/high and start boiling the mixture slowly. This will soften/tenderize the carrot and cabbage mixture completely and let the garlic and sesame oil permeate everything. It will also noticeably decrease the volume of the mixture as the cabbage shrinks.




During this process you may want to add more sesame oil to increase the strength of the mixture's flavour. I'd recommend going with only the stated 1 - 2 Tbsp first off, but on later run-throughs you can add more if desired.

5. After the water has all boiled off, taste-test the filling with a small spoon. If there is anything still crunchy/firm in the mixture (carrot or cabbage) add more water and boil it off again. If not, empty the filling into a large boil and prepare for the next step.











Wrapping the Dumplings

For this you will need a friend, wonton wrappers, baking trays, and some time.








The idea is to pile small amounts of filling on top of each wrapper, then fold the opposite sides of the dumpling up and crimp them closed at the top. It helps if your fingers are wet while doing this (wet wonton wrappers stick together much easier), so having a small bowl of water nearby is useful.









Once each dumpling is done, line them up on the sheet with about 1/2 an inch between each one.








Once a sheet is full, place them in the freezer for 2-3 hours until they are all frozen solid. Remove each dumpling from the sheet with a small twisting motion (they are usually frozen onto the sheet due to residual water, so don't try to pull them directly off!). Bag them in freezer bags with 30-40 per bag for later use.







Actually Cooking Them (Finally!)

Now comes the easy part. Whenever you feel like a delicious snack, grab 8-10 of the dumplings and fry them in a small amount of olive oil on low/medium heat until they are golden brown on each side. Don't thaw them first: going from the freezer directly to the pan helps prevent them from falling apart.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the finished product, but they should look like this:




The dipping sauce is really easy to make and adds a lot to the flavour. Simply combine 3 Tbsp soy sauce, 2 Tbsp white vinegar, and a very small amount of sesame oil (1/4 tsp) in a bowl and you're done.

[Ingredients]

Full disclosure: this is NOT my own recipe. Credit goes to Janet and Greta Podleski and their cookbook "Looneyspoons".

This recipe needs to be prepared 1 day in advance.

Ingredients

1/4 Cup Maple Syrup
3 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp fresh dill
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp salt and ground pepper

4 chicken breasts


Preparation

1. Combine all non-chicken ingredients in a bowl.




2. Cut chicken into strips or chunks and arrange into single layer (if possible) in casserole dish. The smaller you cut the chicken the stronger the dill flavour will be in the end so your mileage may vary.







3. Pour marinade over chicken and mix gently to spread marinade between and under the chicken.





4. Allow chicken to marinate in fridge for 1 day.





5. Bake chicken at 350F for 35 minutes. If you prefer, after this you can transfer the excess marinade to a saucepan and boil/thicken it a bit to make it into a sauce.

6. Eat it. Like Nuclear Chicken it goes well with rice and baked potatoes, but not so much with salad (the dill tends to overpower everything else).

[Ingredients]

This is a really simple dry-rub spice mixture for chicken. The spiciness can be easily adjusted without changing the flavour too much, so it's good if you have some people in your family that don't like spicy food and others that do. Goes well with rice or baked potato.



Ingredients
3 or 4 chicken breasts (1 chicken breast = 1 person, more or less)
2 1/2 TBSP Paprika
2 TBSP Garlic Powder
1/2 TBSP Seasoning Salt
1 TBSP Onion Powder
1 TBSP Dried Thyme (Powdered > Whole for me but your tastes may differ)
1 TBSP Ground Black Pepper
2 TBSP Chili Powder
1/2 TSP Cayenne Powder*

*Cayenne can be eliminated to produce low-spicy version without affecting taste too much. Can also be increased for MOAR FUN IN YOUR MOUTH



Preparation

1. Prepare spice mixture by mixing together all non-chicken ingredients.





2. Add as much Cayenne pepper as you dare.





3. Cut up chicken breasts into strips or chunks. If you prefer, you can also keep them whole although you will get less spice on the breasts that way.






4. Cover the chicken breasts in delicious spices.





5. Add a slight amount of olive oil to a pan. Cook chicken on low-to-medium heat, flipping once. You should be aiming for when the spice mixture starts to darken, just before it burns.






6. Serve with rice/whatever side you want. Tends to go really well with/on top of Jasmine rice.

Found some old Abnormail documents/images I had created but never sent. Figured I'd post them here.

1st Granite, 131 (Early Spring)

It was inevitable, I suppose. Myself and certain other acquaintances had finally been (informally) banished from the seaside farming fortress of Strangleweeds. I am completely innocent, of course, but it seems we are to take the blame for several misdeeds around the fortress recently. Most of these were solidly in the "wrong place, wrong time" category, but it was made very clear by certain high-placed nobles that I should volunteer for the expedition to found a new colony. Or else.

Six other dwarves accompany me, mostly other "inconvenient" individuals who were given the same choice I was.





Still, I suppose there is an upside to this. When we arrive at the designated location we will have full reign to build our own civilization, without the rampant idiocy of the dwarven nobles. From what I have heard, the location selected is lush with wildlife, with excellent soil and a commanding view of a freshwater lake. We have named the new fortress Asobien ("BoatPaddles" in the common tongue) after some discussion. We should arrive within the week.

[ordinary]

Dwarf Fortress is an indie game in going development that obsessively simulates every tiny detail of a fantasy-orientated, randomly generated world. It's like the Sims, if the Sims was about a group of manic-depressive alcohol-dependent midgets living in a mountain fortress.

The major thing about the game is that you're given basically nothing at the start (7 dwarves plus a caravan) and whatever happens next is up to you. Almost nothing is scripted, and due to heavy use of procedural generation almost nothing is the same twice.

You end up with stuff like this as part of a ordinary playthrough:
http://www.eldritch.org/erskin/roleplaying/Bronzemurder.pdf
http://oilfurnace.timdenee.com/


My thought was to run a forum game (like Werewolf) with each participant having a dwarf named after them. I would run the game and summarize goings-on into a regular narration with screenshots, and participants could have their dwarf run around and do certain things or vote on issues of fortress-wide concern. The game generates lots of opprtunities for 1st person stories or narrations by participants, and the main narrative updates would take place every 2-3 days.


What do you guys think?

[where]

You want to understand where we are in the world? You want to understand where we're going, in the cosmic sense of things? What the future holds? Like most things in life, horoscopes and other hokey fortune telling aren't necessary, only an intelligent mind and the ability to extrapolate.


Humans occupy a very special niche in the world: we are a species that sits on the top of a lot of different fences. We are not quite animals anymore, but we have yet to reach the point where be can truly be called a civilized species. We are intelligent enough to develop the theory behind nuclear weapons, and stupid enough to make them. Smart enough to engineer these weapons, and short-sighted enough to stockpile them and play the planet-wide suicide pact that is Mutually Assured Destruction.

We are the point at which the falling angel meets the rising ape. We are what you get when you dope an intelligent man up with a bottle of tequila, put a knife in his hand, and say that THAT GUY OVER THERE was calling his wife a whore.

Our generation is too old to explore the earth, yet too young to explore the stars. We're moving in the right direction, but we're not quite there yet, and we won't be for 50-60 years.



So we wait, looking up at the stars, and dream of what might be.


We are the middle children of history.

This might not be news to some, but it's something I picked up while doing research for my security course, and I figure it might be something worth looking at.

General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) programs are a new type of program that specialize in using a computer's graphics card to assist the CPU in computing resource-heavy tasks. The power of GPUs lies in their ability to perform parallel processing: whereas a CPU can only handle a few threads of logic (general rule of thumb is number of cores x2), GPUs can handle hundreds of logic threads simultaneously (how many exactly depends on the graphics cards in question). Current applications of the theory lean towards math-heavy work like protein folding or physics simulations, but some more practical applications have recently been developed, namely password crackers.
http://gpgpu.org/



Summary: By using both CPU and GPU, password cracking utitlies can increase their bruteforce password guess rate astronomically. An example would be the ighashgpu cracker.
http://mytechencounters.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/gpu-password-cracking-crack-a-windows-password-using-a-graphic-card/

I'm going to use the NTLM hash here. If you are wondering what NTLM is, your Windows (NT and above) logon passwords are not stored as plain text but encrypted as LM and NTLM hashes. They are not reversible and hence supposed to be secure. LM hashes can easily be broken using Rainbow Tables but NTLM hashes are relatively stronger. But that's not stopping us from cracking them.

For comparison, I'm going to use another popular and free security tool – Cain & Abel. This is an excellent tool for breaking different passwords, using the CPU.

To crack a password, you need to have the NTLM hash of that password. Fortunately, Cain & Abel has a hash calculator. So let's do some password cracking.



A password with 5 characters

Using Cain, I generate a random password "fjR8n" whose NTLM hash is "AA8251D1BB587ABFAE6403194216041F" without quotes of course.

As you see, Cain has taken about 24 seconds to crack the password at the rate of 9.8 million passwords/sec.


Let's see what ighashgpu has to offer.


The password is found in less than one second. Secondly look at how many passwords the GPU has churned out per second. Dude, it's 3.334 billion passwords.




A password with 6 characters

Let's now take "pYDbL6" as the 6 character password. The NTLM hash for that password is CB898E9CA230D14413756875DD8BF71D.

Now that Cain reports it would take approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to crack our password. Note that this is the maximum time Cain would take to crack the password. It could even be less than that, depending on the password.

What about ighashgpu?

Ighashgpu finds the password in staggering 4 seconds. Also note that the maximum time it would take to crack a 6 character alphanumeric password is about 17 seconds. See the difference between GPU and CPU computing?

3.33 billion passwords/sec against Windows password hashes is scary. Period. 8-12 character passwords, everyone.

... with the Greater North American Rain Gods.

"Blizzard" is not appropriate weather for April 14th, mkay? The tulips were just starting to come up yesterday, and now it looks like bloody Christmas evening again. What sacrifice must be performed to stop this white terror?

If your name is Susumu Sugawara, the answer to the above question is get in your fucking boat and ride that shit until you win.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/03/japan.tsunami.captain/index.html

Oshima, Japan (CNN) -- Susumu Sugawara looks bemused and a little embarrassed at all the attention he's getting.
The 64 year old has become a local hero on the Japanese island of Oshima. Smashed boats adorn the coastline of this once-idyllic tourist spot, but Sugawara's pride and joy, "Sunflower" is intact and working overtime transporting people and aid to and from the island. It can hold around 20 people at a time.

When the tsunami came, everyone ran to the hills. But Sugawara ran to his boat and steered it into deeper waters. "I knew if I didn't save my boat, my island would be isolated and in trouble," he tells CNN.

As he passed his other boats, used for fishing abalone, he said goodbye to them, apologizing that he could not save them all.

Then the first wave came. Sugawara says he is used to seeing waves up to 5 meters high but this was four-times that size.

"My feeling at this moment is indescribable," he says with glistening eyes. "I talked to my boat and said you've been with me 42 years. If we live or die, then we'll be together, then I pushed on full throttle."

:badass:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19031_6-supervillain-devices-you-can-make-at-home.html

Breaking news: full-moon lunar eclipse tonight, on the eve of the winter solstice! It's going to be visible from all of North America:

1:33 AM: Partial eclipse begins
2:41-3:53 AM: Total eclipse


Times are in EST.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/17dec_solsticeeclipse/

The luster will be a bit "off" on Dec. 21st, the first day of northern winter, when the full Moon passes almost dead-center through Earth's shadow. For 72 minutes of eerie totality, an amber light will play across the snows of North America, throwing landscapes into an unusual state of ruddy shadow.

The eclipse begins on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST (Monday, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST). At that time, Earth's shadow will appear as a dark-red bite at the edge of the lunar disk. It takes about an hour for the "bite" to expand and swallow the entire Moon. Totality commences at 02:41 am EST (11:41 pm PST) and lasts for 72 minutes.

If you're planning to dash out for only one quick look -­ it is December, after all -­ choose this moment: 03:17 am EST (17 minutes past midnight PST). That's when the Moon will be in deepest shadow, displaying the most fantastic shades of coppery red.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xc5wIpUenQ

TurBacon Epic:

1 Quail
1 Cornish game hen
1 Chicken
1 Duck
1 Turkey
1 Pig

1. Place each of these animals inside each other, like a carnivorous Russian nesting doll (top to bottom). Use copious amounts of meat glue, butter, and bacon (if you don't use more than 10 packs, you're doing it wrong).

2. Roast.

3. Eat

4. Die

My laptop. RUINED. A week and a half before final projects/exams. ALL my course work is on it.

ACER MAKES SHIT LAPTOPS, PEOPLE. My damned graphics adapter just blew out an hour ago, rendering the laptop useless as anything other than a bludgeoning instrument. It lasted exactly 1 year and 3 months (on the fucking dot).


I will now proceed to take the following steps:

1. Remove hard drive from old laptop
2. Verify that the hard drive is indeed still functional
3. Backup data from hard drive onto desktop
4. Purchase new, non-Acer laptop
5. Install old hard drive in new laptop
6. Take a massive, festering dump in old laptop
7. Mail old laptop to the nearest Acer support center
8. Send polite, snailmail letters to every quality control manager in Acer I can find on the Internet, explaining the impact their product has had on my education, and how as a future IT professional I ensure that no department I work in will be similarly inconvenienced.



RAEG

BEHOLD

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/gop-investigate-scientific-fraud-global-warming-report/

Fresh off a dramatic victory in which it retook the House leadership, the Republican Party intends to hold major hearings probing the supposed "scientific fraud" behind global warming.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder related the news in a little-noticed article Wednesday morning.

The effort is a likely attempt to out-step the White House on energy policy moving forward. Legislation on energy and climate change reform, one of President Barack Obama campaign promises, has yet to materialize, though Obama's EPA recently classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

Holding hearings would please the Republicans' conservative base, which increasingly doubts the scientific basis for global warming -- especially human-induced global warming -- and provide a reflection of the new GOP's tenor.

AMERICA WANTED IT
AMERICA'S GETTING IT

A question for everybody, because PD has some very intelligent people on it:

My sister is currently going through high school, and can't decide on what kind of career to pursue.

She is:
-Very good with animals
-Artistic (excellent flute player, and enjoys drawing)
-Likes decorating

Her plan had always been to become a veterinarian, but her current marks in biology and chemistry aren't going to support that. Vet tech she could do, but where we live vet techs barely make above minimum wage. She is talking to the career counselor (interior decorating or animal therapy was suggested), but I'd like to know if anyone here has any ideas.

http://mserisdiscordia.com/
Link is the entry page for a Discordian-themed BDSM/Erotic Hypnosis/NewAge Metafisics website. NSFW, but only after the entry page.


DISCORDIAN PORN: RULE 34 IS LAW, AND WILL BE ENFORCED.

1. http://erkie.github.com/
2. Drag big green button to your bookmarks bar
3. Switch back to this page
4. Click Bhutan
5. Arrows keys control your ship, spacebar fires.

http://io9.com/5639113/the-scariest-video-you-have-ever-watched-in-the-name-of-science

You can hear the sound of his cast-iron balls clanking together 

... from how ball-shrivelingly awesome this is.

There are no words.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqi0M8X7KXw

I have recently come into possession of around 300-400 good-sized crabapples (50-60 pounds). They're not the small little berry-like ones either; they're about 1/3 the size of regular apples and taste a bit like Pink Lady apples.

ITT, we suggest delicious recipes to use them in. I've found a couple recipes for crabapple pie, jam, juice, and even liquor, but I'd like to know if anyone has any good recipes for the things.





That's about 60-70% of them: I still have some to pick.




They taste delicious. IN MY MOUF.

[Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Speaks!]

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Speaks!



The Oracle stretched out on the moonlit hill outside the tiny hamlet of Discordia, enjoying the  beautiful meteor shower. Tiny streaks of light flashed through the sky as he watched, bright enough even to be seen despite the full moon. All was quiet.

The Oracle laid on the hill for nigh until midnight, and was about to retire back to his house when it happened. The moonlight dimmed, casting darkness onto the entire village. The silence of the night was broken by the sound of wings, and a dense cloud of ghastly bats seemed to arise as if from nowhere. The Oracle threw up his arms and cried out as the foul apparitions burst through him, passing through his body as if it were air. He fell, and the bats streamed over him in an eldritch torrent of fur and leathery wings. Time seemed to slow; and the Oracle stared at the glowing red eyes of the things as they passed.

Intangible to the touch, yet able to inflict a deadly curse upon the soul, the accursed creatures swarmed down the hill and entered the town. The Oracle watched in horror as they swarmed and converged. A single scream was heard, brief but fleeting, and the Oracle stood ashen-faced. The curse of the Wolf may have left them, but the curse of the Bat was now here to stay.




Unbeknown to the Oracle, he was not the only one to witness this horror. Professor van Helsing had also born witness, from his camp on the outskirts of Discordia. He watched the proceedings with a grim sort of resignment: it was something he had seen countless times before. Dracula had arrived, and the villagers' lives were now in mortal danger. The Professor picked up his crossbow and began to wind it. It was the beginnings of a tragedy he had seen a hundred times before, but this time would be the last. It had to be.




Werewolf IV: DRACULA has now begun!

-----------------------------

Players:
1. Doktor Howl
2. Mistress Freeky
3. Risus
4. Requia
5. Fred
6. Jenne
7. Dr. James Semaj
8. Rumckle
9. BDS
10. LMNO
11. Sigmatic


Dracula ------> Amdis --------> Xannin -------> Asclan




RULES:

At the beginning of the game, there is only one vampire: Count Dracula.

Count Dracula

Although the daily lynching process is the same as in Werewolf, during the night Count Dracula chooses one villager and converts him or her, rather than killing. This creates the beginnings of a vampire chain.

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1

The next night, the new vampire chooses one villager to convert, adding him or her to the chain. This is repeated until a third-generation vampire is created.

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3

Once it is passed down the Vampire #3, the vampiric curse is too weak to be passed on again. Count Dracula then starts a new chain, thusly:

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3
                        \---> Vampire #4


"But Remington!" You say. "That's too unbalanced! The villagers will be overrun in days!" Not so. For when one vampire dies, all those further down his or her chain die as well.

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3
                        \---> Vampire #4
                                      ||
                                 Means that
                                      ||
                                      V
Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3
                        \---> Vampire #4


Thus, multiple vampires can be eliminated in one lynch.  Should the Count himself be killed, all the vampires die and the villagers win (the vampires win when they outnumber the humans). This hierarchy means that each vampire knows only the identity of the vampire who sired them and the identity of the vampire they sired; only Dracula knows who all the vampires are.





One last thing: taking the place of the Psychic will be Dracula's nemesis, Professor Van Helsing. The player chosen to be Van Helsing can protect one person per night, shielding them from any and all vampire attacks. Should Van Helsing accidentally try to protect a vampire, a battle will ensue. If the vampire Van Helsing fights is not Dracula, he will have a 1/3 chance of killing it, escaping from it, or dying. If he does blunder into the Count, his death is assured.




-----


It is now night. Count Dracula, please choose your victim. Van Helsing, choose your person to protect.

http://www.milliondollarhorse.com/

... yeah.

http://gizmodo.com/5575554/important-street+legal-tron-lightcycles-are-now-up-for-auction

There's a lot to love about Tron, but for me it all pales in comparison to the lightcycles. These ones on eBay? Not props. They're working, street-legal models you can actually buy. But you'll want to hurry.

The limited edition of five lightcycles—each made to movie spec, but with actual working parts—comes from the same outfit that brought you the $100,000 Batpod. These babies will put a hurt on your savings, too, but at $35,000 they're almost tempting enough to consider. Especially since they're a limited edition:

The Parker Brothers team is building 5 custom one off "Lightcycles" to the exact specs of the movie bikes. Each bike will be black with an accent color - 5 bikes with 5 different accent colors (red, blue, yellow, green, and orange). There will only be one bike made per color so if you must have a certain color, you better call now... Now, about the bikes themselves, the wheels are custom made 22" x12" dual hubless wheels with custom made tires (Hoosier is custom making 5 sets just for us specifically for this project). (Buyers will have the option of additional tires as needed) The frame is 2" cold rolled and boxed hardened steel with carbon fiber/fiberglass bodies. Accent colors are neon glowing from behind frosted plexiglass and can be turned off or on with the flip of a switch.

DO. WANT.

[Fantasy Feeder]

http://humor.gunaxin.com/five-absolutely-horrifying-internet-communities/62843

Fantasy Feeder

A "fat positive" community, Fantasy Feeder isn't just for overweight people to convince each other that they look fine the way they are; most of its users have dreams of gaining additional weight, or of helping a significant other do so. That leads to fascinating topics of discussion, like how to stop your doctor from pestering you to lose weight (because your crippling health problems must have some other source), as well as how to dismiss the concerns of your friends and family (if they suggest you're eating too much it means they don't love you).

There's even a specific board for users to discuss the times they ate so much in one sitting that they became too full to move: it includes both heart-warming clogging stories about taking down three large pizzas at once, and tips on how to stop your poor body from rebelling against the atrocities that it suffers through.

Daily Diapers

Daily Diapers sounds like some sort of scatological newspaper, and, well, that's actually not very far off. See, while most of us were happy to get out of diapers, these folk miss the good old days where they didn't have to take those tedious trips to the bathroom. OK, there's probably more to it than that, but we're too grossed out to get the details.

There are over 11,000 photos on the site, plus a few dozen videos and a couple of hundred stories (spoiler alert: diapers get soiled in all of them). There are also several hundred product reviews, which are helpful because we're not even sure where to start when it comes to products that let us piss ourselves.

The forums feature a wide range of users; some just like to strap on a giant diaper now and then, but others take it further with baby bottles, pacifiers, stuffed animals and a complete lack of self-respect. Other prefer to be the "mothers" or "fathers" of overgrown infants, because that way they can combine the thrill of changing diapers with the joy of raising a man-child that refuses to get a job and move out.

Well, at least they're using diapers because they find them erotic, not because they're more convenient than interrupting an eight hour World of Warcraft session with a bathroom break. Plus, everything is consensual and physically healthy, which actually makes Daily Diapers the least messed up community on this list. And that's the most horrifying part.

Shokushu High School

If Hollywood has taught us anything it's that if we had the chance to redo high school the experience would be wacky yet fulfilling. And that we should avoid Zac Efron movies. Mostly the latter.

But seriously, if you have regrets about your years at high school, what would you have done differently? Asked out that cute girl from English class? Joined a club? Transferred to an all female school where the students had lesbian sex continuously, assuming they weren't busy being raped by demons and hideous tentacle monsters?

If you answered yes to the last question, then you need to enrol at Shokushu High, a role-playing forum. If you don't know what a role-playing forum is, it involves creating a fictional character and then posting as if you are that character. Sort of like Dungeons and Dragons, except even nerdier.

Role-playing forums are nothing new, but most are just full of 12 year olds being silly. Shokushu High, however, takes things to a terrifying new level. First of all, it's been running for over a decade, which means there are people out there who have spent ten years of their lives pretending to be a nubile schoolgirl, a tentacle creature, or both. And, oh yeah, it's about schoolgirls getting constantly raped by monsters.


Their motto is "Where ravaging tentacles explore the female student body." No, really.


Seriously, this community is insane. They're meticulously organised, with about as many rules and regulations as an actual school. And the, uh... scenes the characters get involved in aren't short, simple events; they take thousands and thousands of words written over several months to complete. These people are very, very dedicated to their promiscuous schoolgirls, and as a result we are very, very scared of them.

My GF just got a new Bichon Shih Tzu puppy. It's only 2 months old, and it is the cutest damn thing on the entire planet.











Here's the entire gallery: http://img408.imageshack.us/g/img3213je.jpg/

It's that time again... WEREWOLF!

Except, not really. For our fourth installment of the series, I've decided to shake things up a bit. I've heard of a variant of the game called Dracula, wherein the primary antagonists of the innocent villagers are bloodthirsty vampires rather than lycanthropes.



It works like this:




At the beginning of the game, there is only one vampire: Count Dracula.

Count Dracula

Although the daily lynching process is the same as in Werewolf, during the night Count Dracula chooses one villager and converts him or her, rather than killing. This creates the beginnings of a vampire chain.

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1

The next night, the new vampire chooses one villager to convert, adding him or her to the chain. This is repeated until a third-generation vampire is created.

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3

Once it is passed down the Vampire #3, the vampiric curse is too weak to be passed on again. Count Dracula then starts a new chain, thusly:

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3
                        \---> Vampire #4


"But Remington!" You say. "That's too unbalanced! The villagers will be overrun in days!" Not so. For when one vampire dies, all those further down his or her chain die as well.

Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3
                        \---> Vampire #4
                                      ||
                                 Means that
                                      ||
                                      V
Count Dracula ---> Vampire #1 ---> Vampire #2 ---> Vampire #3
                        \---> Vampire #4


Thus, multiple vampires can be eliminated in one lynch.  Should the Count himself be killed, all the vampires die and the villagers win (the vampires win when they outnumber the humans). This hierarchy means that each vampire knows only the identity of the vampire who sired them and the identity of the vampire they sired; only Dracula knows who all the vampires are.





One last thing: taking the place of the Psychic will be Dracula's nemesis, Professor Van Helsing. The player chosen to be Van Helsing can protect one person per night, shielding them from any and all vampire attacks. Should Van Helsing accidentally try to protect a vampire, a battle will ensue. If the vampire Van Helsing fights is not Dracula, he will have a 1/3 chance of killing it, escaping from it, or dying. If he does blunder into the Count, his death is assured.


What do you guys think? Registration is open, as are suggestions for adding/removing elements of the game.

[If this happens, the customers who are identified will receive a settlement offer of $2,500]

As many of you may have heard, the makers of the recent film The Hurt Locker are gearing up to sue people who've downloaded the file on via p2p. They published a list of IP addresses that they claim were sharing/DLing the movie:

http://torrentfreak.com/ip-addresses-of-first-hurt-locker-victims-revealed-100609/

Approximately 700 IP-addresses of BitTorrent users who allegedly shared a copy of 'The Hurt locker' have been submitted to the Washington D.C. District Court. The public court records show that nearly all IPs in the group were tracked from the last week of April until the first week of May.

Little more than a week ago the makers of The Hurt Locker filed a complaint against the first 5,000 'unidentified' BitTorrent users. Helped by the U.S. Copyright Group (USCG), the film makers are requesting the personal details connected to the IP-addresses that allegedly shared the film on BitTorrent.

The first batch of IP-addresses (copy below) has now been submitted to the Court, linked to customers of over a dozen US Internet providers. Besides the IP-address and the time when the alleged infringement was recorded the document reveals very little evidence. It is unclear from the current details what file was tracked and whether the evidence gathering techniques will stand up to scrutiny.

The D.C District Court will now have to decide whether or not the ISPs of the alleged infringers will be ordered to hand over the personal information of the users associated with the IP-addresses. If this happens, the customers who are identified will receive a settlement offer of $2,500. Through this scheme, the USCG and Hurt Lockers' makers hope to collect millions of dollars in revenue, beating their box office earnings.

It's interesting to note that none of the IP-addresses in this first batch are linked to Time Warner customers. The ISP in question is the only one that is standing up against the money grab, as it went to court hoping to prevent a subpoena that will force them to expose hundreds of customers to the USCG. Time Warner claims that this process would prove too time consuming.

A problem that has been overlooked by most of the press and expert comments is the fact that there will be dozens of wrongfully accused people. Through similar cases in the UK we've learned that the evidence provided by the copyright holders is very flaky to say the least. We suspect that the USCG, which appears to be a two man operation, is simply out to collect as much money as possible through settlements and will avoid taking individual cases to court.

Important parts are bolded. Basically, these guys are going to send legal blackmail letters to you; if you don't pay then they sue you for unspecified large amounts of money.

An interesting solution has popped up though, from the least likely source:



For the socially functional among us, "LOIC" stands for "Low Orbit Ion Cannon". It's the Distributed Denial of Service client that /b/tards use to attack servers/IPs.

So,

Unless you downloaded the Hurt Locker. In that case, watch the mail and get in touch with your lawyer buddies.

Jim, you know this is hard for me to do.

What?
No, it's not a problem with your crew's performance. In fact, your numbers have been up this quarter significantly, right across the board. We couldn't be happier.


You've been one of the most useful, productive managers we've had so far in this company. No-one's doubting how efficient you've been, nor how trustworthy. The problem, Jim, is something that's really out of our hands. See, just last week, you became obsolete. The company's found software that can do your job better than you can, at least according to the vendor's benchmarks. It's for the sake of efficiency... I'm sure you understand.


Hey, don't get angry. This wasn't my decision; it came down from up on high. The Company needs to monitor and control it's workforce directly, while still continuing those budget cuts. We got hit real hard with the recession... everyone did. You've been a good employee, though, and we'd like to keep you on in some capacity... maybe in custodial services? No? Alright.


Well, I'm glad that's settled. Sorry it had to come to this, but progress is progress. You can be out of this office by 3:00, right? We need room for the server racks.

http://news.suite101.com/article.cfm/sarah-palin-hosting-series-on-tlc-a226445

In a move that may defy logic, The Discovery Company hired Sarah Palin to host an eight part series on TLC titled: "Sarah Palin's Alaska."
Discovery Company

The Discovery Company owns educational television channels such as the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel ("TLC"), Animal Planet and Science Planet. These channels have earned their reputation of airing informative, scientific and educational programs about the Earth, weather patterns, animal habitats and ecological issues, to name a few.

Mark Burnett worked with Discovery from 1996 to 1999 producing "Eco-Challenge," which was the predecessor of his wildly successful "Survivor" series. Burnett is teaming up with Discovery again to produce "Sarah Palin's Alaska."

Sarah Palin on Environmental Issues

Gazelle Emami at The Huffington Post .com refers to Palin as a "notorious anti-environmentalist" in her article dated March 25, 2010 ("Sarah Palin teams Up With Discovery Company") Emami chronicles Palin's most anti-environment policies, including:


    * Palin fought the federal government's decision to include polar bears on the endangered species list.
    * Palin pushed to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to unique and diverse arctic species. The protection and preservation of these areas is vital to the world as we know it.
    * Sarah Palin continues to deny that human activities cause global warming and global climate change. She has gone so far as to write in the Washington Post Op-Ed section, "While we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs."
    * Had Measure 2 in Alaska been passed, it would have banned the practice of gunning down wolves from aircraft. This method of wolf control is considered cruel and is extremely painful for the wolves. Palin spent $400,000 of Alaska's money fighting Measure 2.
    * Palin also came out against Alaska's Measure 4. Measure 4 was a clean water initiative aimed at protecting Bristol Bay, which is one of the world's most productive salmon fisheries.


Read more at Suite101: Sarah Palin Hosting Series on TLC http://news.suite101.com/article.cfm/sarah-palin-hosting-series-on-tlc-a226445#ixzz0mcJmdCNd

This is gonna be good.

[Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Telleth a BedTime Story!]

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Telleth a BedTime Story!


Twas the night before Werewolf, and all through the flock
Not a creature was stirring, not even the Dok.
The wolfsbane was hung by the doorway with care,
In hopes that a werewolf would not be there.

The psychic was nestled all snug in his bed
While visions of lottery ticket numbers danced in his head.
The village seemed quiet; peaceful; at rest,
With autumn trees wearing their colourful best.

When out in the field there arose such a howl
I sprang from the bed to see a beast out a-prowl
A horrified gasp sprang forth from my throat,
Followed by silence as I threw on my coat.

I come to you now, to tell you the news,
So sorry, you spags, to cut short your snooze.
'Tis guesome, 'tis horrible, alas and alack
But... 'tis the truth: they're here, THEY'RE BACK!


------------------------------------------------
Werewolf III has begun.


Player List

1. Doktor Howl
2. Dr. James Semaj Official Scapegoat of the PeeDee village
3. StoreBrand Retired from game
4. Horrendous Foreign Liam Stoat Resigned from game
5. ThatGreenGentleman Democratically deceased
6. Fredamir Putin VICTIM OF A HORRIBLY PLAGIARIZED NURSERY RHYME
7. Risus
8. Rumckle Such an awesome way to die
9. BDS Needed more salt
10. Sigmatic Wolf Fenrir
11. Requia Wolf Xennas
12. Paesior Awwwwww shit
13. Jason Wabash Holy shit, werewolves with chainsaws
14. Mistress Freeky
15. Lysergic Wolf Shigau
16. Dimo
17. Triple Zero Victim of a break-and-enter
18. Pariah CHOPPITY CHOPPITY CHOP
19. Enrico Salazar Made Xennas bleed
20. Wondering Monk Do never wake a sleepwalker
21. Traffic

Players who die will be crossed off the list and colour-coded (green for a lynched person, red for a 'wolfed' person, and purple for a dead wolf.

Now, I'm normally not an envious guy. I want what I need, and what I need isn't much. Decent food, a place to lay my head, everything else is pretty much optional.

Normally, I would say I want this. But no, I need this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ih_KBru6Co&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJew-zCGSKQ&feature=player_embedded#
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/flying-hovercraft-rudy-he_n_484766.html

A New Zealand inventor and hovercraft aficionado has used parts from his barbecue, his daughter's scooter, and his wife's car to create a hovercraft that can fly.

The craft--a standard hovercraft fitted with detachable wings--can fly at up to 96 kmh and at a height of around 1.5 meters.

Rudy Heeman, who created the 'hoverwing,' has been building hovercraft in his spare time for over a decade and says he spent over 800 hours and tens of thousands of dollars creating his flying gizmo.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Flying-hovercraft-Zealand-Heeman-Subaru,news-6013.html

While hovercrafts aren't anything new, a New Zealand man has taken the concept to a "higher level" by designing a hovercraft that can actually fly. As if yanked straight out of the future, the craft is capable of traveling not over land and water, but can soar over rough terrain of up to 10 feet in the air.

AutoMotto reports that it took designer Rudy Heeman almost ten years to create the vehicle. Constructed in the garage, Heeman used various parts from other vehicles such as junked cars, scooters, and even BBQs to produce the craft in its present form.

Under the "hood," the hovercraft packs a 1.8 liter Subaru engine which has the potential to crank out a maximum of 140 MPH. The machine works as a boat without its wings and tail, however with the appendages attached, the craft will actually take flight once it speeds beyond 43 MPH. The craft can also carry two people, or 352 pounds, whichever is greater.

Basically this guy took a normal hovercraft, souped it up, and added wings. It travels over both air and water, and when the speed hits 70 kmph, it takes off. An aviation licence is not needed to operate it, and he's planning to start marketing them for ~$13,000.

DO WANT.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/8549613.stm

Taylor, 59, of Griffen Street, Salford, admitted at Liverpool Crown Court religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

The Crown Prosecution Service said each case should be treated on its merits.

The atheist admitted leaving images of important religious figures in sexual poses but said he was simply challenging the views of others.

   
All we can do is to look at each on its merits
Crown Prosecution Service

The chaplain at the airport, who was "severely distressed" by the discoveries in November and December 2008, immediately reported the images to the police, prosecutors said.

Taylor, who has been released on bail, will be sentenced on 23 April.

The maximum sentence for such an offence is seven years in prison.

Because you only get freedom of expression if you're expressing the right things.

[Hear Ye, Hear Ye, The Oracle Speaks!]

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, The Oracle Speaks!

Snarl, yip, grrrr... Tis that time again! The moon is out, the villagers are afraid, and it's TIME TO LYNCH US SOME WOLVES.



I'm assuming everyone knows the rules by this point, although I can provide links/reposts upon request. Registration is now open, and several players have been pre-registered (If you expressed interest at the end of Werewolf II).


Player List

1. Doktor Howl
2. Dr. James Semaj
3. StoreBrand
4. Horrendous Foreign Liam Stoat
5. ThatGreenGentleman
6. Fredamir Putin
7. Risus
8. Rumckle
9. BDS
10. Sigmatic
11. Requia
12. Paesior
13. Jason Wabash
14. Mistress Freeky
15. Lysergic
16. Dimo
17. Triple Zero
18. Pariah
19. Enrico Salazar
20. Wondering Monk
21. Traffic

[Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Speaks!]

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Speaks!

A cool evening breeze swept over the village of Discordia, sending the grass swaying and the hem of ThatGreenGentleman's dress fluttering. She hummed as she made her way up the hill, skipping along the well-worn path and and stopping every now and then to pick flowers. In her hand she carried a basket of bread, a gift from her parents. She was to deliver it to Old Man Howl, who lived in his laboratory on the top of the hill. Flashes of light and the occasional insane laughter were known to burst from the house in the middle of the night, and most of the residents of Discordia thought Howl to be quite insane. The Green Gentleman didn't mind him though... he always told her stories about the awful desert he had escaped from, of the Lost Highway and annoying assistants and the horrible Machine.

She knocked on the door, once. Twice. No-one answered, so she knocked again, louder this time.

TheGreenGentleman pushed open the door, and stepped inside nervously. The house was completely silent. The only light came from cracks in the ceiling and from the door behind her; darkness hung in the air like a thick fog.

"Mr. Howl? Are you here?" Nothing.

TheGreenGentleman fumbles over to a windows, grabbing one of the dusty curtains and coughing from the dust. She pulled the curtain back, and light shone into the room.

"That should help," she muttered as she dusted her hands off. She turned around...


Her shill scream could be heard all throughout the village.





The villagers gathered outside Doktor Howl's house, and Mistress Freeky held the sobbing GreenGentleman in her arms. The girl's face was white with shock, and her lips were sealed tight with fear. She answered no questions, would listen to no-one, and refused to so much as look at the old wooden house.

The decision was made to enter the house, with Annabel and the Oracle taking the lead. The door creaked open, and the flickering light from Annabel's lantern revealed what had nearly frightened the life out of ThatGreenGentleman.

Doktor Howl's mutilated corpse lay on his own operating table, his intestines ripped out with less-than-surgical precision. Dried blood was encrusted on his delicate scientific instruments, and his eyeballs had been pulled out and stuffed back into their sockets backwards. The entire scene was something out of a macabre horror story, a nightmare made reality.

"Who... or what did this?" Annabel's voice was unsteady as he fought to contain his rising nausea. "What kind of sick creature could do this? A bear?"

The Oracle came forward, determination written large on his face. "No," he said, "Not a bear."

He crouched down beside the operating table, and Annabel passed his lantern down. "There's only one creature capable of this kind of murder, " the Oracle said. He traced a long, deep gouge in the wall, running the length of it with his finger... it was easily an inch deep.



"Werewolf."






------------------------
Werewolf II has begun.



Player List

1. Annabel the Destroyer The Psychic saw it coming but was powerless to alter his own fate, despite the power he had over the fate of others. Lulz were had by all.
2. FP Wolf Fenrir
3. Iason Ouabouche
4. NotPublished
5. Lysergic Wolf Fenrir got the drop on him
6. LMNO
7. Gin
8. Pariarrhea
9. Hoopla
10. Mistress Freeky
11. Fred Wolf Angau caught her out late
12. BDS
13. Dr. James Semaj Wolf Doohan
14. CAPTAIN CHAOS Wolf Doohan doesn't like superheroes
15. Rumckle
16. ThatGreenGentleman
17. Sigmatic
18. Chief Uwachiquen

Players who die will be crossed off the list and colour-coded (green for a lynched person, red for a 'wolfed' person, and purple for a dead wolf.

*Being some sort of techno-rant, inspired by my WAN course and motivated by lack of caffeine/sleep




The mouse moves.

Optical tracking systems within the mouse track the surface as it moves, converting meaningless visual data into precise electronic signals. The signals bound through the air on invisible frequencies, impressed upon a carrier wave that oscillates more than 2 billion times per second.
The signals enter the computer, are processed, and are accepted by the operating system. Their job is done.



The cursor moves.

It slides over the screen to rest on a group of blue text. Of course, the cursor does not exist: neither does the browser that the screen displays. They are an elaborate, digital lie: nothing more than a visual representation of the true processes that lurk within the computer's memory. It is a lie, but it is a useful one.



The mouse is clicked.

A new process is begun, one with a far different purpose than the others. That click signals the browser: information is needed. However, there is a problem: the information is not available. It does not reside on the computer, it is not here. It is somewhere else; it is Other. The browser assembles a peculiar piece of data: not information, but a request. The User demands data, and the User cannot be ignored. Why the User wants the data is irrevalent, it is enough that It does. Yet the data is not here, it is there. A place represented only by a number: 66.33.209.37.



The packet is released.

Fired out of the network interface with the force of a digital cannon, the long sequence of electrical pulses speed down the network cable. They are naught but small electron surges, small and insignificant pulses of voltage. Yet they are encoded: they have purpose. Direction.  
The sequence blazes through the cable in under a microsecond, encountering a strange, unknown device as the exit the copper wire. It has no name, but it has purpose: switch. The device is not intelligent, but it can make decisions: upon seeing the first parts of the sequence it recreates the pulses and fires them out a second, different port with blinding speed. Another machine follows switch, and another, and another: each growing in complexity. The pulses are now one of many in a vast flood, blazing down cables as router upon router blur past.



The packet arrives.

Here, finally, is the information requested so long ago. This place is Other, the place it was sent to. The data packet, having survived all the routers, switches, fiber networks and trans-continental carrier lines the Internet could inflict upon it, finally delivers its message. Its duty done, it is consigned to the digital abyss.



The Other responds.

Deep within the bowels of the Other, the request is received. Data is requested, data that the Other has access to. Why the User wants the data is irrevalent, it is enough that It does.
The data is gathered, and packaged. Subdivided, so that it is small enough to survive the coming journey. Thusly prepared, the requested information is fired back into the network in a fire hose of data. It blurs through the same path the original sequence did: flashing through machines and cables with inhuman speed.



The data arrives.

It pours through the computer's network port like a binary waterfall, bytes upon bytes cascading down into memory. The entire round trip has taken more than half a second: an eternity in digital reckoning. The browser seizes the data as it arrives, and begins to create a new lie.



The lie changes.

The browser reconstructs its world as it interprets the data it received into meaningful code. The screen blanks white, and milliseconds later colour splashes back in new patterns and forms. Columns and images snap into place as the browser enforces the tyranny of formatting. Interactive buttons and links become active, their functions linked to deeper secrets within the browser's code. Finally, when all is prepared and arranged, the text bursts forth. Sentences upon sentences of text burst into being, arranged into paragraphs precisely as the Other's data instructed.







The text means nothing to the browser, or even the computer. That is irrevalent, though: the User understands it. It is the reason for the browser's existence, the reason for the efforts of the Other. Signals traveled down thousands of miles of copper wire, optical fiber, and were processed by dozens of gargantuan routing machines. It took decades of research, development, and deployment by innumerable genius minds to design those signals, cables, and machines. Data crossed continents, braved the deepest depths of the ocean, and crossed the breadth of the planet quicker than the blink of an eye.



And all so you could read this page.

[Signup List:]

It's that time again!




Werewolf II: Electric Boogaloo* is now accepting new registrants. The previous game thread can be seen here. We need about 20-25 players, then we can start.

Also, my apologies for delaying round 2 for so long. College was keeping me very very busy.

Signup List:
1. Annabel the Destroyer
2. FP
3. Iason Ouabouche
4. NotPublished
5. Lysergic
6. LMNO
7. Gin
8. Pariarrhea
9. Hoopla
10. Mistress Freeky
11. Fred
12. BDS
13. Dr. James Semaj
14. Shrunkenheadspace
15. Rumckle
16. ThatGreenGentleman
17. Sigmatic
18. Chief Uwachiquen


ROOLZ


3 werewolves are selected at random by the Narrator (me), along with one Psychic. The rest of the players are normal villagers. The werewolves know who their fellow lycanthropes are, but the villagers are completely uninformed. Neither the villagers nor the werewolves know who the Psychic is. The Narrator announces who has been killed/lynched and coordinates the game, but is not a player per se.

The three wolves are distinguished by names:
Wolf Fenrir
Wolf Angau
Wolf Doohan

The game is divided into "day" and "night" cycles, which are usually 24 hours each. The extended days are so that members from different timezones can participate equally.


Villagers

For the Villagers, the aim is to kill all the Wolves. At the outset of the game, the Villagers do not know who the Wolves are; it is up to them to figure it out.

The Villagers can vote to 'lynch' someone they suspect of being a wolf during the day cycle of the game. To do so, they must secure a certain number of votes (50% - 60%, the exact number will be declared at the beginning of the day). Wolves can participate in the discussion and vote as well, because the villager don't know who they are. People who have already died in the course of the game are not allowed to talk during the day (only during the night), and hence cannot vote.

The Psychic is on the side of the Villagers; he/she gets one chance each night to make a guess and find out whether or not someone is a Wolf. The Psychic sends me a PM, and I tell him/her whether or not that player is a wolf. What the Psychic does with that information is completely up to them.

An important note as well: If the villagers win, ALL of the villagers win (including the dead ones). Because dead villagers (and wolves) can post during the night, being killed does not necessarily mean the game is over for you.


Wolves

The Wolves win when they have reduced the villagers down to a 3:1 ratio. Once this ratio is reached, the wolves will overrun the town and kill all remaining villagers. This means that if both wolves are alive, they will win when only 6 villagers remain (8 people total).

Unlike the villagers, each Wolf knows who the other Wolf is. Every night, a Wolf can send me a PM telling me who they want to kill, and then that person will be killed. The Wolves take it in turns: Wolf Fenrir the first night, Wolf Ulric the second. On the third night, it is Wolf Fenrir's turn again. If a wolf dies, the wolves do not lose a turn. The following morning, I will reveal who was killed.



*Not its actual name

I had a bit of a revelation while driving home today. I suddenly came to realize that in my life, there are few things that I personally created. Too few. My college courses are written by other people, I do them on a laptop conceived, designed, and built by other people, and I sleep in a house that I had no role in making. None of it is mine, damnit.

Sure, I own some things: the laptop, my car. I've paid for college partially out of my own savings. But it's not a true ownership; the kind of ownership that can only exist between creator and created. I've bought it, but I didn't make it (not so much for my college courses, but still). If I'm in the process of crafting my own ideas, viewpoints, and worldviews (IMO, that's what Discordianism is), why can't I be making my own things? Some things would be impractical (a DIY car, for example), but there's lots of things that could be made by a young, slightly insane CompSci major.


So tomorrow, I'm going to set up a Paypal account and buy several Fresnel lenses online. When they arrive, I shall make something, whether it be a water heater or a solar-powered death ray. Whatever it turns out to be, it is sure to be these:
1. Dangerous
2. Science
3. 100% mine.

Watch the newspaper headlines, Roger. It'll be like that scene from the one crappy James Bond movie (Die another Day), but not as controllable.

[Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Speaks!]

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Oracle Speaks!

Attention, villagers! I bear horrible news to you today. Early this morning, I received a revelation from the spirits of old. The ancient magic of the Moon has been disturbed. That which was once thought gone has re-awoken, the Curse has been laid! Among us 14, there are now two poor souls that must die. Those two have uncovered the horrors buried by our ancestors, and sworn oaths long since forgotten. They have sworn away their very souls.


I tell you now, so that all may hear: these two traitors are human no more! In their folly, they have become Wolf! Now, unless we stop them quickly, they will murder their way through the village until none are left. There can be no truce, no bargaining, as all reason is lost to their minds when the light of the Moon shines upon them. Their blood is as beast's blood, and their minds are as devils.

Our people have defeated these nightmares before, and we can –no, we WILL- defeat them again. The customs of our ancestors must be followed, the customs of those who faced the Wolves long ago. We will hold council tomorrow, and attempt to root out the evil among us. Such is the way.

Lock your doors tonight, and lock them fast. Pray that you will live to see the blessed light of dawn. But in your prayers, remember that for one among us, this night shall never end...




PLAYER LIST



There are 14 Players:
1. JohNyx Strung up by an angry mob
2. Chief Uwachiquen Wolf Fenrir was having a REALLY bad day
3. Shrunkenheadspace: Wolf Ulric
4. ThatGreenGentleman
5. Herbertina Merrique V Victim of Wolf Ulric's wine and dine
6. Cainad
7. Saint Bourgeoise
8. Mistress Freeky
9. Gin
10. Iason Ouabache: Wolf Fenrir
11. Cain Blew his brains out (resigned)
12. Dr. James Semaj Democratically deceased
13. Slanket
14. Fuquad Nommed by Wolf Fenrir. Do never disturb a sleepwalker.
15. Rumckle

Players who die will be crossed off the list and colour-coded (green for a lynched person, red for a 'wolfed' person, and purple for a dead wolf.

LOL EVERYONE'S DEAD





A recap of the rules:

Villagers

For the Villagers, the aim is to kill all the Wolves. At the outset of the game, the Villagers do not know who the Wolves are; it is up to them to figure it out.

The Villagers can vote to 'lynch' someone they suspect of being a wolf during the day cycle of the game. To do so, they must secure a certain number of votes (50% - 60%, the exact number will be declared at the beginning of the day). Wolves can participate in the discussion and vote as well, because the villager don't know who they are. People who have already died in the course of the game are not allowed to talk during the day (only during the night), and hence cannot vote.

The Psychic is on the side of the Villagers; he/she gets one chance each night to make a guess and find out whether or not someone is a Wolf. The Psychic sends me a PM, and I tell him/her whether or not that player is a wolf. What the Psychic does with that information is completely up to them.

An important note as well: If the villagers win, ALL of the villagers win (including the dead ones). Because dead villagers (and wolves) can post during the night, being killed does not necessarily mean the game is over for you.


Wolves

The Wolves win when they have reduced the villagers down to a 3:1 ratio. Once this ratio is reached, the wolves will overrun the town and kill all remaining villagers. This means that if both wolves are alive, they will win when only 6 villagers remain (8 people total).

Unlike the villagers, each Wolf knows who the other Wolf is. Every night, a Wolf can send me a PM telling me who they want to kill, and then that person will be killed. The Wolves take it in turns: Wolf Fenrir the first night, Wolf Ulric the second. On the third night, it is Wolf Fenrir's turn again. If a wolf dies, the wolves do not lose a turn. The following morning, I will reveal who was killed.



Also, these are important:
-Make it very clear who you are voting to lynch. In order to count, a vote must be stated as follows:
"I vote to lynch [NAME]". You must have the phrase "I vote to lynch", otherwise it could be construed as a suggestion or something. When voting, add a running total so that keeping track of votes is easier.
"I vote to lynch [Player A].
[Player A]:   1"
You can change your vote, but please keep the running total up to date.

-Dead people (villagers AND wolves) can talk during the night, but ONLY at night.

-Wolves cannot disclose who their partner is, even once they're dead.

-Only players can post in this thread.




It is now night. Wolf Fenrir, please tell me who is going to die. Psychic, send me a guess.

[Villagers]

So, another forum I browse started playing a game called Werewolf a couple of weeks ago. It involves plotting, mob mentality, paranoia (tons and tons) and secrecy.  It's also called Mafia in some places.


We need around 25 people to play the game. 2 werewolves are selected at random by the Narrator (me), along with one Psychic. The rest of the players are normal villagers. The werewolves know who their fellow lycanthropes are, but the villagers are completely uninformed. Neither the villagers nor the werewolves know who the Psychic is. The Narrator announces who has been killed/lynched and coordinates the game, but is not a player per se.

The three wolves are distinguished by names:
Wolf Fenrir
Wolf Ulric

The game is divided into "day" and "night" cycles, which are usually 24 hours each. The extended days are so that members from different timezones can participate equally.


Villagers

For the Villagers, the aim is to kill all the Wolves. At the outset of the game, the Villagers do not know who the Wolves are; it is up to them to figure it out.

The Villagers can vote to 'lynch' someone they suspect of being a wolf during the day cycle of the game. To do so, they must secure a certain number of votes (50% - 60%, the exact number will be declared at the beginning of the day). Wolves can participate in the discussion and vote as well, because the villager don't know who they are. People who have already died in the course of the game are not allowed to talk during the day (only during the night), and hence cannot vote.

The Psychic is on the side of the Villagers; he/she gets one chance each night to make a guess and find out whether or not someone is a Wolf. The Psychic sends me a PM, and I tell him/her whether or not that player is a wolf. What the Psychic does with that information is completely up to them.

An important note as well: If the villagers win, ALL of the villagers win (including the dead ones). Because dead villagers (and wolves) can post during the night, being killed does not necessarily mean the game is over for you.


Wolves

The Wolves win when they have reduced the villagers down to a 3:1 ratio. Once this ratio is reached, the wolves will overrun the town and kill all remaining villagers. This means that if both wolves are alive, they will win when only 6 villagers remain (8 people total).

Unlike the villagers, each Wolf knows who all the other Wolves are. Every night, a Wolf can send me a PM telling me who they want to kill, and then that person will be killed. The Wolves take it in turns: Wolf Fenrir the first night, Wolf Ulric the second. On the third night, it is Wolf Fenrir's turn again. If a wolf dies, the wolves do not lose a turn. The following morning, I will reveal who was killed.

The revealing of who has been killed/lynched will be in the format of short stories (250 words or less). I'll do my best to keep up creatively with the killings, although if I come up short I'll recycle scenes from the other forum this game was being played on.




So, what do you guys think? It's a lot of fun, and I think it would make for a very interesting game (especially on this forum), but we do need a fair number of people. Post in this thread to sign up or give feedback (we can adjust the rules if necessary), and I'll make the actual game thread later if we get enough people.

[Edit]

I do not fear you.
Do your worst.
DISREGARD.









Edit
Lesson learned: Do never invoke the WRATH of a true WOMP-Master  

WHICH AVATAR IS BETTER?




CANNOT DECIDE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW4lCD3XhZc&feature=player_embedded

HIS FACE

IT NEVER CHANGES 

Answer nao!

Saw this on Digg today, and thought it was quite interesting.
http://io9.com/5391989/a-black-hole-engine-that-could-power-spaceships

Artificially generated black holes could provide us with the power to make inter-solar travel a possibility. New research shows how strapping a black hole to your starship might just give you the juice to get to Alpha Centauri.

Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland of Kansas State University propose a way to use black holes as fuel that is entirely within the bounds of physics and technology as we know them, but would take phenomenal amount of engineering.

The crux of their idea involves using using a laser to form a micro black hole, which could be used as an energy source. This would be a Schwarzschild, or non-rotating, black hole which outputs Hawking Radiation, and the smaller the black hole, the more energetic.

Of course, making a black hole isn't the world's most easy undertaking. It takes a huge amount of power to build one in the first place. To make one of these mini black holes, Crane and Westmoreland propose a 370km2 solar panel, at an orbit one million km from the surface of the sun, which, if perfectly efficient, would gather enough energy per year to make one black hole. This power would be fed to a spherically converging gamma laser, with a lasing mass of around 10^9 tonnes. However, after you make a few black holes, you can use them as a power source to make more.

According to the authors, a black hole to be used in space travel needs to meet five criteria:

   1. has a long enough lifespan to be useful,
   2. is powerful enough to accelerate itself up to a reasonable fraction of the speed of light in a reasonable amount of time,
   3. is small enough that we can access the energy to make it,
   4. is large enough that we can focus the energy to make it,
   5. has mass comparable to a starship.

Fortunately, black holes have a sweet spot in terms of size, power and lifespan which is almost ideal. If you take a trip to Alpha Centauri, with an acceleration of 1g to the half way point, and then decelerate at 1g for the remainder of the journey, the trip takes a relativistic 3.5 years. A black hole that would survive the entire trip would have a radius of 0.9 attometers, would have a mass of 606,000 tonnes, and a power output of 160 petawatts. The lifespan of the black hole could be extended by feeding it mass, too.

For longer trips, you could use larger but weaker holes, and smaller and more powerful ones for short trips.

Cool stuff, and it seems kinda plausible (from my limited understanding of physics). Could be a viable alternative once fusion proves insufficient... although I'm not quite sure how they plan to contain the thing.


Here's the report itself. The first two pages or so are pretty easy reading, then it breaks out the hardcore math.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0908/0908.1803v1.pdf

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

    * * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

    * * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

    * * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

    * * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

None of this strikes me as being even remotely legal. Will it fly? Will the internets be killed by Grayface? Who the hell knows anymore?
STAY TUNED.

More links:
http://torrentfreak.com/secret-anti-piracy-treaty-turns-isps-into-pirates-091104/
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/leaked-acta-internet-provisions-three-strikes-and-

Last Friday we reported that The Pirate Bay was forced to move outside of Sweden, and that the world's largest BitTorrent tracker had found a new home in the Ukraine. Unfortunately this was a short-lived solution, with TPB now moving to Cyberbunker.

CyberBunker is located in a former military nuclear warfare bunker in The Netherlands. The facility was built by NATO in the 50s to survive a nuclear war, but after the nuclear threats were over it was sold to its current owners. The bunker is now used as a webhosting data center.

The bunker is equipped with Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) shielding and Nuclear/Biological/Chemical (NBC) air filtration to guarantee that the servers they host stay up no matter what happens. As of this week it is also the new home of The Pirate Bay.

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-relocates-to-a-nuclear-bunker-091006/

What now, bitches?

[not]

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2009/09/19/research-finds-that-atheists-are-most-hated-and-distrusted-minority/

Really, is anyone surprised? I love how atheists are hated for not believing in fairy-tales.