For the last couple of years I've been coming to this site mostly out of a sense of responsibility. I was made a moderator and I was the only one of that group who generally frequented the site even on a monthly basis. As such I felt it was my duty to come by at least once a day if possible to ensure a spam wave or something illegal wasn't happening. Due to my reasoning, I would look at every updated topic; even Brian37's poetry. And I hate poetry. Edgar Allen Poe himself could have been posting and I'd have been equally unimpressed.

For quite some time there hasn't really been a need for the level of supervision I was providing, the spam levels are and have been extremely low for quite awhile; and noone in my tenure went so far as to break any laws, at least not that I saw or recall. I can't actually identify the last time I cleared some spam out.

Recently my actions have mostly been restricted to removing duplicate posts, if I saw them before there were responses anyway. Deleting posts here results in all response posts being deleted as well, so I'd leave them be if people had responded. There was no way to tell if someone had clicked reply on the offending post or on another, and I'd rather see a double post than delete content just to clear doubles out. Anti-censorship has always been a prevailing ethic here, which was why I was so drawn to the site to begin with.

But it was still my volunteered job and I took it fairly seriously.

Because I forced myself to check every new activity, I would often see something that I couldn't let stand unchallenged.

A new game is starting to make the rounds in the media, and it is unique.

The first interesting thing to note is that once a sufficient number of players has been killed, the game ceases to exist. The concept has never been attempted before, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out. I could write a whole article on this concept alone. The one thing I will predict is that if the game becomes a hit, someone won't let it die.

The gameplay is also unique. The world is inhabited by The Flock, monstrous hunting creatures (you). The objective is to acquire the light artifact. Acquiring the light artifact, however, is only the beginning. The beam of light will destroy any Flock that moves, but it makes you slow and easy to find. It makes you the prey.

http://www.vogelsap.com/theflock/

http://theflock.gamepedia.com/The_Flock_Wiki

I'd be very interested in giving this game a try. It sounds fun. And freaky, like Doom was back in 1994. Only worse, because it's people hunting you. Not an easily confused AI that knows as much about strategy as a rock.

I've about had enough of all this Confederate flag bs.

Ever hear of freedom of speech? I don't care what flag someone wants to fly, I say let them. Let them fly the Nazi flag if they want to. Every minute the politicians waste on this should see them locked up for a year for wasting taxpayer money.

Does it have ties to racism? Sure. So do a lot of other flags. Like the US flag, which was waved around while committing genocide. Like the Union Jack, which was a symbol of oppression for hundreds of years. I doubt there's ever been a flag that wasn't stained with blood.

There's more important issues than a bloody piece of cloth. Education has gone to hell, infrastructure is crumbling, there's at least two dozen wars going on right now, schools get shot up every few months, and Russia and the US are chest beating like it was still 1970. Shut up about the damn flag and let people fly it if they want to. There's more important things to deal with.

My best friend died a few minutes ago of a brain tumour. I already miss him. I've never known anyone I could trust as much as him. Noone else I could comfortably talk to about anything at all. Politics, religion, girls, life, death, stupid shit, important shit.
It was just a few years ago I met him. The time we had was too short. I loved him as I would a brother. Probably more than a brother.
I couldn't be at his side when he passed. The ice storm made that impossible. The taxi companies said they weren't travelling out of town, and I was unwilling to risk anyone else I care for. I know he would have been horrified if anyone got hurt trying to see him when he was sedated and unable to even recognise it, but I still feel like shit for not being there.
I take some solace knowing that the rest of his friends and family were with him. He was not alone.
He was 28 years old. A couple years after we became friends he was diagnosed with the tumour when he started having seizures.

Every time a new console war starts brewing, I make predictions on the results. So far I've been remarkably accurate. Lets see how well I do this time.

Nintendo: WiiU.

The only reasons the Wii was successful were its price and its casual friendly set up. I predicted they'd be the leader in sales, but added the drawback that it could never contend with Sony or Microsoft in hardcore games because it was effectively a PS2 with a gimmick controller. It had neither the power nor the support.
The WiiU takes this to a level that shoots itself in the foot.
First problem is it was released too soon. It is competing with PS3 and XBox 360, both of which are cheaper and more powerful. It will never contend with PS4 or XBox 1. It is outclassed in every way. So Nintendo threw away the cheapness advantage it enjoyed last generation in exchange for absolutely nothing.
The new controller gimmick is shit. If I want a hand held console I'll buy one. I'll never want one so big, heavy, clunky, and vulnerable, however.

Where to begin.. should I even begin? I'm generally not big on sharing my problems, but I think I might as well get it out.
I've never been so anxious and unsure of the future. I'll cut most of the shit out, but to make a long story short, all my roommates are or have moved out. I've always struggled to even pay 1/3 of the rent, and now it's all on me. And if that wasn't enough, my power gets cut at the end of the month unless I can somehow come up with the money. Everyone who left, left owing me money. Some more than others. But if I were to randomly total it all in my head quickly, it's hovering near 2-3k in total. I suppose it's better than me owing people money, but only in a moral sense.
On the 13th I have to go to the rental housing tribunal to see if I can argue my way into keeping a place to live. I have a hell of an argument, but if things go badly I'm pretty fucked. Even if they go well I still have to worry about power, which I only have in my hands half of the necessary funds to pay.
cont...

I've been reading all the stuff on space exploration these days, and thinking about it hit me: it's now too late to bring socialism to the population en mass. Through any tactic or strategy.
The future of our species, should we keep going for another 50 years or so, will be driven by corporations. For good or ill.

The future as I see it:
For the next decade or two, it will remain the governments of nations with space programmes who drive space exploration. But the corporations have already struck their foothold, and with every passing year they will invest more and more until they surpass the funding of NASA, CSA, ESA, etc. combined.

Whether it is a nation or corporation which first colonises Mars, the end result will likely mirror the founding of the new world, and a conflict will break out over taxation or supplies or something similar. Maybe multiple wars. And maybe just political awkwardness, but some kind of conflict.
It will be around this time that corporations and governments have been going into

With all the recent discussion on the right to bear arms in the US, coupled with my personal dissatisfaction with the way our governments are being run, I struck upon an idea.
What if, instead of a rebellion, per se, you just formed a government.
Obviously, you have no authority, no resources beyond what you bring in and convince others to donate. But you involve the people the way governments of today do not.
If you do it well, and the people support you enough, then eventually the support for your government will force the government to cede all authority. That's the nature of democracy.

This isn't an overnight revolution, and it isn't an easy one. You must know all you can about what the current situation is, and come up with real solutions. Solutions that make a practical sense which the population can easily understand and support.
You must have people willing to work for effectively nothing on a project which has a real chance of failure, and little obvious chance of success.

I was reading the interesting discussion between Luminon and Old Seer in his 'Corner' when it hit me that the ongoing and upcoming religious and financial wars are linked, perhaps inseparably. I'd drifted off for a few minutes, so I can't point to what exactly they were saying, but a quote I'd heard popped into my head and just started bouncing around: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful".

It got me thinking about where the money is, and what it's being used for. It got me thinking about how religious institutions are desperately seeking new members. It got me thinking about control and power, who has it and how much. About how, regardless of logic, after WW2 socialism has been linked heavily with atheism (which I'm sure is a constant annoyance to our right leaning members), while capitalism has been linked to theism.

Strangely, there is actually a logic to it which escaped me before.

Long story short, a former roommate screwed his own credit rating just to get revenge for being evicted for being a fucking idiot. 16 days later I'm back online and he still owes the cable company $300+.

Personally, I'd say I won. Hell, no net gave me the opportunity to play a game I'd picked up recently and never got around to playing while I had net: Final Fantasy Tactics. I must admit it's a pretty sweet game.

Anyways, I'll just get back to my religion bashing and spam removal.