Hippie Van wrote:
Ironscarf! Long time no see!
I hope all is well with you.
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Hey Hippie, good to see you! I sent you a pm on that other site a few weeks back, but you clearly don't go there much! I stopped using their forum myself after Mlai and SgtBravo were banned.
I am well thanks - struggling though. How about you?

Most people seem to crush on Alan Davies - Jimmy will be thrilled.


Sorry Ozone - inadvertantly flipped the page on ya - carrying over your comments to Hippie.
I'm just yanking lba's chain, to coin an Americanism - I know him of old as a charming fellow!

@Hippie-
Your Spring temps would be the absolute depths of winter here… I would be miserable… or just in fur clothes ALL the time!
QI is fantastic, but not always as correct with the facts as they
lead you to believe unfortunately… It's a comedy show afterall and
they like to put a spin on things to make them more notable, interesting
and funny (thank gods or it'd be dull!), but yeah: take it with a grain
of salt.
For example, sometimes the “facts” will be based on things that were
the exception rather than the rule, which is still factual but not
really representative.

That said, I love the show. I think Jimmy Carr mugs way too much…
Whereas Alan Davis is wonderfully understated, but does take over
sometimes. My fave is Phil Jupitas.

Ironscarf wrote:

Mlai and SgtBravo were banned

O_O
I've temp banned a few people in my time and permabanned maybe about 3… (not counting spammbots) but never of the calibre of those sorts of people.

Bravo and Mlai never stuck me as the types to behave badly and anti-community enough to get that treatment.
Can't really second guess their mods though, I don't know the story.Still, Mlai and Bravo? That's weird.

——

Hahaha, scarf, just saw your sig! :)
Alfie.

@Ozone:
My favourite mistake on QI was not actually one of the facts, but their confusion about the RCMP in Canada (about 12 minutes in on the “Food” episode). Stephen Fry seems to think that all Canadian police are members of the RCMP (a lot of them are, but not in all provinces) and then is unsure if they are all mounted. Haha!

—

@ Ironscarf:
I'm doing well. Nothing too new over here.
Alan Davies is lovely but in a very kiddish way. I saw him recently in a serious role and just couldn't buy it because I'm so used to his QI persona.

By the way, are American actors supposed to put on exaggerated accents in British film and tv? I've been watching Agatha Christie's Marple on Netflix and every time there is an American character they seem to have the most outrageous American accent. I can't tell if they're putting it on or if it just seems that way because they're surrounded by people with English accents.

They could be poms acting as yanks?
It could also be the way they were directed, maybe? “You don't sound American enough! Go bigger, louder, more drawl!”

I was dissapointed when I went to the states, not many people talked like that at all. :(

No, not at all. I love that accent and wish I actually knew people who spoke that way.
People where I live tend to have a very neutral accent. We make good translators, apparently. And if you go out East, the folks there have the strangest mix of Irish, Scottish, English and American accents.

I think what you're hearing there is the British TV producers notion of what an American accent would've sounded like back in the thirties. This has been a stock thing on Brit shows set in the period for as long as I've been watching TV - I don't know how it started and I don't imagine any american ever really sounded like that.
Actual American I find much harder to follow - I can only catch about 50% of the dialogue in most modern US films.

Bravo and Mlai never stuck me as the types to behave badly and anti-community enough to get that treatment.
Can't really second guess their mods though, I don't know the story.Still, Mlai and Bravo? That's weird.

A couple of months back the forum regime changed to the complete opposite of what it had previously been with no explanation - suddenly we were being continually lectured about sexism, racism, feminism and other isms our lecturer had just heard about! Both Mlai and Bravo were banned for unacceptible bigotry (I'm not making this up) finding themselves in the unfortunate position of saying something they weren't supposed to in the course of discussion. What the real motive behind all of this is, I can only speculate.

Got a job in fundraising. Sucks but the pay is good.

Ah, so maybe it's a BBC English type thing…it's the American accent that people can understand! It's completely unfair of them to invent such a wonderful accent!

I also remember the obnoxious American character in that one episode of Fawlty Towers talking that way. Although that's a comedy, so I imagine his accent was purposely exaggerated.

—

I would love to hear what exactly those two said to get themselves banned.
I'm at a liberal arts university in the middle of downtown right now so I get to hear about -isms all the time. You guys known I'm all up for those causes but man, the holier-than-thou attitude of some of these people can get tiresome sometimes.

I have had a forum adventure and found MLai's offending posts. His original post does come across pretty terribly (at least I found it slightly upsetting), but I'm fairly certain he just worded it poorly and then didn't explain himself very well.

Edit: Ah, and Bravo appears to have implied that homosexuality is a mental illness, and then asked whether serial rape, pederasty, bestiality, schizophrenia and alcoholism might also qualify as alternative lifestyles.
I honestly have no idea what his point was there, but to be honest I can kind of understand that ban.
(Sorry Bravo.)

Congrats to you SamE! ^_^

————

Mlai could be a bit of a dick in the way he expressed himself, but he wasn't actually a dick and didn't have a dicking personality. He never deliberately set out to be mean or cause problems. It doesn't take much to see past his words to his real intentions. He's a good guy.
Bravo is a great guy too, as we know- smart, sensitive, mature, well read. On DD he is always on his best behaviour!
On his Facebook posts he does have a tendency to get a bit Jeremy Clarksonish however…

But, as a mod or admin you do not punish people for their own views! That is not on. You only start warning or banning if behaviour is problematic for the community- people attacking others etc. THAT is the job of a mod, not being thought police.
-unless they're advocating illegal activity.

As to the “isim” thing, I've noticed a new and very, very worrying trend towards a new puritanism: people mistakenly treating any sexuality in pop-culture as “sexist”, when in reality they're simply advocating the same old fashioned religious puritan rightwing views that ALWAYS come out to CRUSH sexuality in culture.

These days it comes in a guise of anti-sexisim when in reality it IS sexism because the goal is to “protect” women from images of sexuality. The whole thing is scary and revolting to me, it literally makes me sickin my stomach to think about the twisted objectives of these people.
Instead of setting out to crush sexuality, they should be teaching themselves not to be afraid of it and to embrace it, for men and for women… Crushing it only leads to things like slut shaming and rape culture.
Sexism is about limiting opportunities for people and a culture of keeping them down based on gender, NOT about depictions of sexuality in art and broader culture. It's a short step for them to smashing the penises off of Greek statues.

So this “Puritan” view of things… is it against having strong female figures (such as the fictional Lara Croft or the real world Iron Lady)?
Sorry. The “Puritan” view makes me sick. It's too black and white for my taste and it also denies the idea that the world is really painted in shades of gray.

But, as a mod or admin you do not punish people for their own views!
That is not on. You only start warning or banning if behaviour is
problematic for the community- people attacking others etc. THAT is the
job of a mod, not being thought police.
-unless they're advocating illegal activity.
As to the “isim” thing, I've noticed a new and very, very worrying
trend towards a new puritanism: people mistakenly treating any sexuality
in pop-culture as “sexist”, when in reality they're simply advocating
the same old fashioned religious puritan rightwing views that ALWAYS
come out to CRUSH sexuality in culture.

Exactly - if you're going to start banning people because you don't like their opinions, then after a while you don't have a forum anymore - you have a fan club or a cult or something. Open discussion is the nature of the beast.
But the isms in this case were adopted so quickly and in such a reversal of what had come before, it's difficult to see any real conviction there - more like slapping a particular band's badge on your beret just because the girl you fancy likes them.

Hippie, I was trying to track down those threads but failed. Your search skills are most impressive!

Yes, I wasn't saying that I would have banned Bravo had I been in the place of the admin. Just that a negative reaction to that comment didn't seem totally outrageous.
Oz, I completely agree with you about the puritan thing. It especially bothers me when radical feminists reject/put down pornography and sometimes sex overall because blah blah blah it's bad for women. It seems to me like they're reinforcing old victorian stereotypes that women are delicate flowers that must be taken care of, and can't possibly make their own decisions about these things.
I do think the femme fatale character is becoming a bit overdone, though. I don't have a problem with her overall, but I don't think it should be the go-to way to make a lady character cool.

Ironscarf said:
Hippie, I was trying to track down those threads but failed. Your search skills are most impressive!

Especially given that I didn't know what bravo's username is over there!
Not really, though. I just searched up their most recent posts as I figured those must be the offending ones.

I feel like my teasing of Ironscarf came off as me being a dick there. That's been happening a lot lately, and I honestly have a hard time telling if it's me being an ass or the people I'm surrounded by being overly sensitive ( I mean in the regular, non-internet world and it's just kind of transfering to the internet me. )

To be fair though, I also don't understand the majority of conversations around here any more seeing as how I've been so piss poor about keeping up with the happenings of the site. I've been so busy losing myself in the corporate world that I've been kind of losing track of what's going on in the places like DD that I prefer to spend my time on. It's a bit of an imbalance I feel like that gets corrected every time I leave another full-time job for unemployment/freelancing.

Okay. Playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and a question shows up in my mind…

What real world village celebrates the autumn season by having a “Harvest Brawl”? Granted the fictional village in the game was nearly destroyed 18 years prior to the start of the story. I've heard of Harvest Balls, but Harvest Brawls?

Harvest Brawl = two teams of three people braining each other with clubs…

I'd probably lose in one. I'd never participate in an event that involved cracking my skull open. My Human Wizard character barely survived the event.

-_-

addon: Not sure if Skoolmunkee will kill me for this, but I have a fighter in the game as well. He wields dual Katanas. His name? Garras Vakarian (because I couldn't think of a good name at the time). >:-)

lba wrote:
I feel like my teasing of Ironscarf came off as me being a dick there. That's been happening a lot lately, and I honestly have a hard time telling if it's me being an ass or the people I'm surrounded by being overly sensitive ( I mean in the regular, non-internet world and it's just kind of transfering to the internet me. )

For the record, I did not think you were trying to be a dick lba. This is more a case of my hilarious xenophobia retort failing to hit the comedy mark.

Reminds me of the time I called Ozone a meglomaniac, but it turned out he was having a really bad day, so instead the DD comedy hall of fame, I found myself in hastily typed apololgetic PQ corner. I really need to work on my timing.

holy fuckin fuck i wish i had a internet time machine , cuz i hate the future of the internet .
sooooooooooo BORDE
btw , hi everybody

Ironscarf wrote:

Reminds me of the time I called Ozone a meglomaniac, but it turned out he was having a really bad day, so instead the DD comedy hall of fame, I found myself in hastily typed apololgetic PQ corner. I really need to work on my timing.

No, the fact was your joke was actually spot on and I couldn't take the awful truth so I freaked…

So then I…
Swallowed sadness (like a boss)
Sent some faxes (like a boss)
Called a sex line (like a boss)
Cried deeply (like a boss)
Demanded a refund (like a boss)
Ate a bagel (like a boss)
Harassed by a lawsuit (like a boss)
No promotion (like a boss)
Fifth of vodka (like a boss)
Shit on Debra's desk (like a boss)
Bought a gun (like a boss)
In my mouth (like a boss)
Oh fuck man I can't fucking do it… shit!
Pussy out (like a boss)
Puke on Debra's desk (like a boss)
Jump out the window (like a boss)…

…and so on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c
I'm sensitive like that :(

——

Hi Lothar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^_^

intolerant, arrogant PC dumbkopfs and Bravo the homophobe.

In all the time I've spent with health care professionals I've picked up some of the technical talk. I stupidly used some of the lingo which is easily misinterpreted by folks unfamilar with it and even worse has been recently misused by some notable bigoted folks. I wasn't aware of how haters were misusing the terminology and it's all too easy to be mistaken for them by someone who doesn't know the proper meaning of the terms only how they've been misused by haters. So you unwittingly use a term and it's all misunderstood. It's ignorance all around and very painful for me. And then I was my usual stubborn and stupid self and set myself up for an even worse backlash.

Certain people under all their Politically Correct -ism freeness are plain arrogant, closeminded and hateful hypocrites. They're just as intolerant as the worst redneck skinhead. I was in the Army for over 10 years I've seen all the -isms first hand and fought it and even changed some minds. Calling me a homophobe is like calling a 1960's Freedom Rider a racist.

Lastly I believe in free expression. I may disagree with what you are saying but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it.

@Ozone
If this is how you admin this site, then I want to know how you handle your “real” work ;)

@Gullas - the rest of the song should tell you that :)
I chop my own balls off and die at least once a day.
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@Bravo - I hate the term “politically correct”. It's a strawman, nothing else.
Being sensitive to other cultural points of view isn't being “politically correct”, that's just being normal. If people hate that then they ARE likely flat out racists and bigots.

THAT being said though- people who seek to police the way others think and actively try and strive for the mythical “political correctness” are a bane and poison to everybody! It is THEY who do more harm to the cause of cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness than anyone else.

They caricature the ideals, distort them, weaponise them and turn them into targets of hate.
It's like how people like Dawkins turn Atheism into something obnoxious and objectionable, when it's not.
Or self described “Darwinists” misunderstand evolution, focussing it all on monkeys and other misunderstood crap like the idea of a linear progression from simplicity to perfection etc. which leaves the door wide open for crazy creationists.
Or PETA, who've done immeasurable harm to the cause of the human treatment of animals…
Or George W Bush Jnr as the US President and what he did for the nation's image world wide. :)

ozoneocean wrote:
They caricature the ideals, distort them, weaponise them and turn them into targets of hate.


Well put. And if you take these people to task, then of course you are a racist, sexist, homophobe etc etc. This makes it impossible to have a mature and reasoned discussion with them. I was deeply pissed off this morning to discover that the chap who used to do Due East on here, has been badgered into removing the word ‘biracial’ in reference to a character in his comic profile over there.

This is a corruption of the noble idea that you shouldn't be erroneously referring to the race of individuals in newspaper articles and TV reports when their race isn't relevant to the story. But this author is promoting the positive aspects of the character, not pushing negative stereotypes - it's all gone arse about face if you ask me.

And hi Lothar! :)
I suppose the Wayback Machine is a kind of time machine - I sometimes look at the old DD. It's a pity you can't post there!

Great. Why am I reminded of that one time I got punched by someone who hates minorities. He told me that the Devil created us “brown and black” people. I insinuated that he worships the devil as a diety. Got a black eye for that…

Would they prefer the term multi-ethnic or mixed race? There is a move among the Politcally Correct (for lack of the better term “Word Fascist” ) to remove “bi” from all group discourse. As suppsodely “bi-sexual” is now derogatory even though it was used during a recent conference on sex roles in the Humanist movement by bisexual people. I told someone on CF that obviously they hadn't gotten the memo even though they were prominent leaders in LGBT movement. He was not amused.

I go with Bill Maher and free expression. I was a huge fan of his show Politically Incorrect back in the day. I use the term the way he did fully aware that to Conservatives it is one of their favorite straw men but for me it's the irony of having to follow the party line like the term originally meant back in the day of the Bolsheviks. As far as I am concerned all the restrictions on language only serve to hide the actual existing conditions of prejudice and ‘isms. Deal with changing the conditions first and foremost. Splitting hairs over language will never help a member of a group get a job. Back in the Civil Rights days it was said doesn’t matter what you call the black man; nigger or negro, what matters are the rights you deny him.

Recommended books: Illiberal Education by Denesh DeSouza, Closing of the American Mind by Bloom,and various works by Nat Hentoff and Susan Jacoby.

fucked a giant fish , like a boss

I was a teen of the 80's. I'm guessing that's when I lost my sanity watching all those saturday morning cartoons. Or was it the first five years of my eldest niece's life when I was forced to watch Barney the Dinosaur almost every single morning…

I remember watching The Centurions (Man and Machine, Power X-Treme if I remember right)..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQT00ZSVzcg

Only Powered Suit type heroes I've seen before this was Iron Man. I liked that they could mod their suits for any situation within their fields of expertise. Now I find myself wondering which powered suit would be a better military platform. Iron Man's suit, which has every gadget he could think of built in. Or these Exoframes which can be modded as needed (even without the teleportation feature which is pretty hard to recreate IRL).

Of course now there are militaries working on powered suits. I've seen Japan with an air powered frame and the US with a bulky frame connected by cables to a power source. How will such things augment soldiers on the battlefield is anyone's guess…

Lonnehart wrote:
Of course now there are militaries working on powered suits. I've seen Japan with an air powered frame and the US with a bulky frame connected by cables to a power source. How will such things augment soldiers on the battlefield is anyone's guess…

The future is droids and drones. It's easier to make a metal framework and send it off to do things with the person on a remote control, than to try to put the metal framework around the poor grunt. It is easier to bulk up a soldier so he/she can carry preexisting body armor and make that body armor lighter and easier to carry than to make some kind of powered suit.

And then one day the two technologies will meet in the middle and viola! A lightweight powered suit?

The US has played with advanced technology for military purposes for a long time and they're usually trying to do too much, too soon with too little. And then they build something and it's far too expensive to be practical no matter how cool it is. Look up all those 1950s-1960s boondoggles like the XB-70 and MBT-70. Super duper cool but too soon, too expensive and totally unnecessary. How long did it take to make the flying wing practical? From the YB-49 to the B-2?

lothar wrote:
fucked a giant fish , like a boss

Yup. Turned into a jet, bombed the Russians.

@Bravo- The rule I stick by is to avoid saying “politically correct” or incorrect or whatever completely. When you let the enemy define the battlefield you've already lost.
As for other groups- what they want to be called is what they're called. That's it. Self identification. -Where possible.

ozoneocean wrote:
. When you let the enemy define the battlefield you've already lost.

If you think the battle is already lost no matter how you define the battlefield you have already lost. Use your opponent's definitions against him. Know your opponent as yourself and use his assumed mastery to defeat him. Napoleon at Austerlitz not McClellan at Antietam.

Just been pruning my eucalyptus. This tree produces such perfect digeridoo shaped branches, but we don't have any termites here to hollow them out, so the whole operation is tinged with sadness. :(

Maybe I should cut them off earlier; apperently it's very good wood for walking sticks. Not that I need a stick to walk, but with all the vicious bull terriers people keep around here, it makes sense to carry a weighty club when I walk the kids through the park every morning.

Why don't people keep labradors anymore? Labradors never used to knock down old ladies or eat children. >:O