Vapymid

Hm, I heard people did that with gerbils. I always thought spiders would be too fragile for that - one inadvertent squeeze off the pelvic floor muscles and they're a gonner... Headcrabs, on the other hand... Regards

As good as can be from self-published independent proggers 7xnCEy5Y7BY Regards

@Jeb: oh, I see. He was into bondage games, eh? I suppose you had to remind him what happens to male spiders after sex, in the end? Oh, a fetish thread? What a wonderful idea! I can talk about headcrabs for ages... They look so lovely on top. Regards

What's the problem? She said - it's her ex. She dumped him... Seeing what kind of a womaniser he turned out to be, I'd say - well done, Jeb, good riddance! Ah, but what did he say for himself when you confronted him with that photo, Jeb? Regards

I don't give a flying f**k about feminists. I lived long enough to realise they have 0 impact on my life. If some disturbed female wants all men to be killed and the possession of a penis to be made a capital offense - let her. It's her loss and she has as many chances of achieving what she wants as a suicide bomber has of screwing 70 virgins after he has been blown to smithereens. There will always be nutcases in this world and they will always remain the inconsequential miserable twats they are... No need to waste my adrenaline on fearing something that has a lower chance of affecting me than a possibility of a giant meteorite falling on my head. Regards

@Scott - heh, I've lost a few nails in my time The first - when I was about 4. Oh, my. That hurt so much in the beginning! And then - I was so fascinated with what was happening with my finger, I forgot about the pain and inconvenience of it all and was just watching it with the usual childish curiosity... @Jeb - oh, a house arrest for me then? I'm afraid I can find something to injure myself with even at home. There's always the electricity... Oh, wait what these two wires do? *bzzzzzzzt!* But do try to avoid your many minor injuries - they add up, you know? After all there is such thing as death by a thousand cuts... @Alyxx - I second Binky's question - who did you see? Though, I can't imagine wearing earplugs at a concert! Kind of defeating the purpose Regards

There are few things that are vital for me in a forum layout - clearly seeing which threads have new post and which are the ones I already posted in. Everything else - I can adapt, like Alyxx said... Oh, and yes - keep the colours, please! Regards

Oh. Not fluffy enough? Regards

The "government" in Afghanistan does not stand a chance. You think why there is such an explosion in refugees trying to escape from there to anywhere now? Because they see the writing on the wall... Every one who think the can get away from what's coming - is trying to... It's the same situation as after the Soviets withdrew. And they left a much stronger government behind, so... Regards

Firstly, I'm sure that in 99% of the cases if you see comments like that on a public forum it's one sort of police or another setting up a honeypot bait in the hope of attracting an odd naive and desperate paedo... Now, as far as sexualisation of society is concerned - I think it is much less of an issue than it is seen and presented. Sex is one of the deepest and strongest instinct we have. Humans want to have sex even in societies where all overt sexuality is forbidden. Arguably, there are more sexual violence and depraved porn use in such places than in societies more open about sex. Also, it is only recently that we even have developed the concept of minors and the age of consent. In the past - age 12 was old enough for marriage or prostitution. In many countries it still is. Romeo and Julietta were underage by today's measures. And - a data point from my own experience - I grew up in a place where there was no "sexualisation". Sexy ads? There were no ads at all in the Soviet Union Did it somehow stop me from craving sex from my early age? Not at all. Neither did it reduce the spread of STDs, teenage pregnancies etc. And the amount of paedophiles is constant and not dependent on the sexual content around (my own thesis but I challenge anyone to disprove it). I've been approached by paedos a few times when I was young. Was I bothered? Yes. I wondered how these ugly old men could be stupid enough to think I might be interested in them... Would my reaction have been different if there was MTV channel on TV then? Not at all. Remember - "sexualisation" is there for sales, not for sex. Sex will happen anyway. So, my firm opinion - can't change human nature. As soon as we grow up from toddlers we want to play with our willies (sorry, Jeb, if it feels like I'm excluding your half of humanity - just couldn't find the word What would you call it?). What we need is education - about STIs, conception, strangers and not putting personal information on the internet. Regards

Moderation seems to be a health hazardous job, Jeb. Sneezing, stomach pains. I'm getting worried... Regards

@Binky: been overenthusiastic with rehearsals? May be a mild form of RSI... I'd say - give it some rest... @Jeb: Spring cleaning... Sorry, I hope it'll get better for you soon. You may have disturbed all that winter dust but in the end it will make it easier for you for the weeks to come. Oh, allergic or not - don't neglect breathing your air, please, Jeb. Please? Need our mods alive and well 'ere, don't we? Even if they sneeze incessantly... Regards

I have to add that troops made of conscripts are usually of very poor quality, largely unmotivated and the army doesn't have the resources to train them properly. Basically - cannon fodder... And that is before saying that a lot of conscript's scope of military activity would be as personal slave to an officer, toilng in his CO's garden, or running errands for an NCO who has found yet another piece of equipment to sell for personal gain. I personally found my officers course a very interesting experience but I liked it right then and it motivated me... For some other people doing it with me it was a total waste of time and resources - they shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the army... So, encourage young people to do it - yes. Conscription? No. Regards

@Zaraki - oh, he's got a cataract from all that smoke @Jeb - a beautiful drawing... Such a nice mother-of-pearl effect on his scales and the tip of the tail! Regards

I occasionally read alternative history. The Fatherland and The Man in the High Castle - I read both and liked them quite a lot. The Man in the High Castle is my favourite of the two. To me the plausibility of what-if speculation is less important, though, than the plot and the Sci-Fi elements. I read some Turtledove novels - especially those about the aliens invasion during the WWII. I also loved his American Civil War novel where General Lee's army got equipped with AK-47s just before the Battle in the Wilderness. It's called "The Guns of the South". But as I said, Sci-Fi part is more important for me than the What-if part, so I prefer books like the Destroyermen series to pure alternative historical speculations... Regards

Now that you pointed it out - yeah, I must have gone blind to not see it... (Hmmm, why could that happen, I wonder??) Oh, you - what's the term? - manifested through Rarity's post? Regards

Oh, sorry! Heh, I don't even remember my age here, let alone the date. I must be one the old hermits with a metre-long unkempt grey beard and dressed in rags - in forum terms. But, thank you! Regards

I would say in the societies where arranged marriage is acceptable the divorce is usually not -as it is seen as defiance of parental will and a "dishonour" to the family. The punishment is often death or disfigurement at the hands of close relatives. But I agree about the children. It must be soul-crushing to live in the world in which you appeared unwanted and hated by those who conceived you in the first place... OK, and now - Subject #10: Technology for kids It's a difficult one... There are aspects of learning and getting familiar and comfortable with technology and those are good and necessary. Then there are elements of obsession and when the use of devices replaces the other parts of the child's life - those are bad. But the reason for the obsession? I've been trying to determine for myself what makes children and people in general so attached to the new comms technology... I think it's not really the technology itself. It's the connection with other people. Be it through games or through chat or forums - it's the communication with people that is addictive, not the devices themselves. I remember myself in my youth - there was a period when I could spend hours on the phone with friends - and that was an old-fashioned phone. One-to-one fixed line. The phone itself looking a bit like this: And those were friends I would see daily face-to-face anyway. And we still used the phone... So, I spent in total the same amount of time communicating as kids do today but more of it was face-to-face doing stuff together or being at school. Really, it then comes down not to whether technology takes too much out of child's time but what kind of interaction they should have with other people - direct face to face or technology - a question of a different balance. A question of whether our social life in the newly connected world should be concentrated online at the expense of real life experiences or should more efforts be made to prioritise the IRL part? I don't know. Based on my own experience - I'd say real life should be the priority. But time will tell. We are living through a big experiment... At some point our civilisation will collect enough data about that and it will either accept the situation or cause us to make changes... Regards

@Jeb_CC: Happy AF anniversary, Jeb! Belatedly, sorry... So, it's been a year already... Time perception is a strange thing, sometimes it feels like it only happened yesterday, sometimes - like ages ago. Regards

Aw, thanks, man! And the beer goes to you! Subject #9: Arranged marriages Just to clarify - by arranged marriage I mean the practice where parents choose a partner for their child themselves and impose their will on them, disregarding the child's own feelings and opinion. I don't think there is a worse form of personal abuse than such practice apart from actual rape and murder. And it goes beyond just making the lives of one or two people miserable. It creates or perpetrates a society built on hatred at the core of the key unit of it - the family. Couples who live in hatred towards each other will also hate their children and will also see their children as a commodity to sell to the highest bidder. And their children will be like that too... Once you have a society built on that, it becomes a tumour of humanity. It eats the resources around it but contributes nothing. Nothing creative or new or progressive comes out of such culture. So, I suppose the short answer - I'm totally against it! Now, if we are talking about parents simply arranging for contacts with potential suitors for their child, while the latter still has the last word - that's totally different. I'm OK with that, no problem, even though I personally won't do that... Ah, Jeb... Sorry, I disobeyed your instructions this time, but I thought as Alyxx and Binky replied, posted after me - it would be more appropriate for me to make a new post. I'm sorry. Feel free to slap me for that. *turns his cheek to you, closes eyes, winces in expectation* Regards

From their this year's EP. BdSZCvS-qQg If that's the kind of material their next year's album will be made of - well, just wow... Regards

Alright! I'll do as you say, Ma'am Subject #8 Anti-vaccinators In general, I consider vaccine "refuseniks" either simple-minded or ignorant. More the former, because one has to be a bit stupid in these days and age to believe in anti-vaccine conspiracies when you can just easily go and learn what vaccines are and how they work and realise why they are needed. But of course, all it not so simple. There is a balance of a very small risk of a reaction to a vaccine + its efficacy against the potential damage that an unopposed infection may do. The more serious the disease - the better the argument for vaccination because the consequence of infection are so dire - like tetanus, for example. For other diseases - like flu - the risk of the damage is low and the efficacy of vaccines is also extremely low, so there is a very poor case for total vaccinations. In addition, there is also what's called herd immunity - which is basically the group protection that arises when enough people are vaccinated against a disease. In that case even if an unvaccinated person gets the disease, the chances are that he/she won't meet another unvaccinated and the disease won't spread. What happens when the vaccinations are low - the recent outbreaks of measles in the UK are perfect examples. So, that's why governments are so keen on vaccinations. However, the ideas like refusing unvaccinated people the use of public transport are clearly moronic. They are stupid, ineffective and unenforceable. They are usually cultivated by ultra-left and ultra-right fringes and normally never get to be even voted on... This is not how our bodies work. Vaccines as similar to computer anti-virus definitions. Your anti-virus will only catch those infections that are included in your definitions file but it will catch them before they can do any damage. If you get infected by a totally new virus - it will deliver its payload before you can find it is even there. Because your anti-virus doesn't look for it - it doesn't have its signature. And then you will have to remove it manually and if it's a crypto - it's way too late. You are going to have to pay the ransom or kiss goodbye to your data. Same is with our immune system. Infections for which our immune system already has anti-bodies will be dealt with quickly, before they have a chance to spread. But new infections will invade your body unopposed and by the time your immune system responds and creates new anti-bodies, the infection may overwhelm your body's ability to sustain itself and you die. So, yes, your immune system will eventually create a cure but what good does it do if you're already dead? Take Ebola - a perfect example. So, no, vaccines are amazingly effective and important tool protecting us from early and gruesome deaths or life-long disabilities. It simply needs to be used properly. Regards

Oh, wow, that! I would vote +1000 for more Civil Protection! Regards

Crikey... So much stuff went on here in my absence... Jeb, as you're the owner of this thread and a mod as well - a few questions: - is that OK if I'll post on some of the older topics here? - also, if yes, should I cram all in one post or can I post more than once (that may look like multiple posting by me in that case, if nobody else will post anything in between)? Regards

Ah, I can relate to you about the knees! Not so much about the groin, though - and I'm thankful for that! A year and a half ago I slipped on wet grass and twisted my knee - got the meniscus damaged. I walked with a crutch for 3 months then. Was so infuriating... The only consolation - l could threaten the freaking cyclists with my crutch! But, oh, that pain... Could only sleep on my back and had to keep a rolled towel under my knee - the only way to keep the pain down to "can sleep" level... This summer it was the cyclists revenge as my bike slipped on a sandy patch and I fell on my other knee. The was also gravel scattered about and of course I had to land on a piece of it... I was so angry I went off on my way without looking... About an our later I got curios about the continuing pain and stickiness and that was when I saw the bone through the cut and that I was leaking blood and lymph like a stuck pig... And I had to fly 2 days later and had no medical glue or sutures or anything. Darn. Now I have that big scar on that knee which will be with me till the end of my days... Regards