JamesSavik

I'm not sure if that dance was safe at all...

Disinterested in kiddie games. They stuff I wanted to play had nothing to do with hedgehogs or Italian plumbers. I'm more interested in the stuff below: Advanced Gaming Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_%28series%29 Shrapnel Games http://www.shrapnelgames.com Lately I've been running simulations of a new Egyptian-Israeli conflict. Egypt has been buying American weapons for 30 years and has just undergone a significant change in government. Egyptian M1A1 tanks vs Israeli Merkva tanks is a bloody, awful mess. Israel prevails in most of the sims but not without taking significant damage. Another very scary simulation is the US vs China in the Western Pacific. Our fleet is shrinking and the Chinese fleet and air force is growing exponentially. If things continue going in this direction, China will be able to dominate the region by the mid 2020s and we will be unable to protect our key allies in the region- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and the Philippines.

I was one of the first generation of gamers. I don't play on consoles anymore- just PC but I've played a lot of games from TRS-80, Commodore 64, IBM PC, ninetindo, PS.

Parents need to be brushed off. The world does not revolve around their little brats. I'm so sick of family-friendly bullshit I could hurl. I want the family-contemptuous stuff with whips and chains and naked slave boys. I want to be hand fed grapes and jaegermeister while I take a breather from the orgy. I want to hop in a sauna with Brett Farve, a bottle of Thousand Island dressing and turn up the heat. I want to go right for the extra-salt, extra-sugar high calorie man sauce and skip the salad. I want to slap an Abercrombie & bitch model on the ass and tell him he's too damned skinny and to come back when there's some meat on his bones. I want to jump in a pool of naked people and go pearl diving. I want to do all of this stuff and so does everybody else that's honest and doesn't have a stick as big as a tree stuck up their @ss. I'll bet good money that some of the loudest voices bellowing for family-friendly horse shit are doing so because they know that they are filthy whores and don't want it to get out. [Rant /end]

Se7en is pretty creepy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_%28film%29

Anyone can find redemption. It simply depends on whether or not they are looking for it.

Civilization V

We need somebody that Ole Miss can beat

Alabama doesn't look like graduation has slowed them down. The only SEC team that lost was Vandy and they played another SEC team.

I could think of much more interesting ways to pass the time but if he insisted...

I can't "like" that but I will send you *huge hugs* I was sick last week with a nasty fever and it's no fun at all.

Evolution at the micro-organism level occurs at a furious rate. That's why bacteria develop immunity to antibiotics so quickly and new diseases pop up every so often. The implication is that sooner or later, one is going to pop up that is going to hurt us pretty bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcEAI5p-wUg

I used to enjoy run & lemonaide

Some people act like hunting is some pointless barbaric ritual but in some places, if the game is not thinned out, there are severe health consequences for both species. Deer aren't smart. They will breed to the point to where they can completely strip an area of all available food and become a huge nuisance to farmers. Either we thin the heard or they thin our heard.

Mysterious New 'Heartland Virus' Discovered In Missouri by Richard Knox NPR >> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/29/160272241/mysterious-new-heartland-virus-discovered-in-missouri Two Missouri farmers have been infected with a brand-new tick-borne virus that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling the Heartland virus. The men recovered but suffered serious illness that required hospital care and weeks of convalescence. Symptoms included fever, severe fatigue, headache and nausea. Their platelet counts plummeted, but even though platelets are necessary for blood clotting, the men didn't suffer abnormal bleeding. A report on the new virus is in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. So far, the Missouri men are the only known cases of Heartland virus in the world. But experts are sure they'll find more.After all, the men lived 60 miles apart and got infected independently. That means there must be more of the mysterious new virus in the northwest Missouri environment. "We expect to find new cases," Dr. William Nicholson of the CDC told Shots. "We expect this thing may be wider in geographic distribution than we currently know." The virus is dubbed "Heartland" not only because that's where it was discovered, but because of who found it: an astute infectious disease doctor named Scott Folk who works at Heartland Medical Center in St. Joseph, Mo. Folk is well-known to the CDC. "Whenever he sends us a sample, we pay attention because we're likely to find something," Nicholson says. In this case, Folk sent samples from 14 patients back in 2009. Two of them puzzled the CDC experts — and then surprised them when electron microscope studies revealed a novel virus now called Heartland. The other dozen cases involved a more common tick-borne bacterial infection called ehrilichiosis. "We're pretty excited about it," Nicholson says about the Heartland virus. "It's not every day that you find something new — particularly in the world of tick-borne diseases. We often work with what might be considered antique diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever" Nicholson says the new virus is in the phlebovirus family, which contains more than 70 members. And here's another twist: Heartland virus appears to be a cousin of another new human virus called severe fever with thromboctopenia syndrom virus, discovered last year in China. Another possible cousin may be Bhanja virus, a little-studied virus that has been found in some mammals, birds and reptiles in Asia, Africa and Europe. Nicholson says the CDC, working with Folk, is looking for other people with symptoms similar to the two Heartland victims to see if they're infected with the same virus. The researchers are also analyzing thousands of samples from Missouri ticks, other crawling insects, and animals wild and domestic to see if any harbor Heartland virus. ___________________________ NEJM report >>http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1203378

Haven't had a drink in 9 years. I kept waking up in jail with my ass kicked. But I used to like: Put it in the freezer and serve it cold Careful. You'll get "Clubbed" Great whiskey but dangerous. You might wake up in South America signed on with mercenaries. Dangerous stuff. I call it "liquid boxers remover".

I haven't contributed to this thread but I probably should have all along. I guess I'm down because I have physical pain sometimes. Another part of it is frustration and feeling trapped. I hate where I live but I can't leave. My past is like a long bad road full of shit I'd like to forget. I quit drinking and smoking pot about 9 years ago. That helped for a while but when I get to feeling like I do now, I don't have anywhere to go with it. The feelings are all RIGHT THERE in my face with no escape. Not to mention that living in Mississippi is a never ending circus with candy and carnival rides. There's always the chance I might run into the wrong bunch of rednecks and get to see how many I can stab before I get murdered. I'm angry, frustrated, tired, hurting, afraid and before the day is over I am sure some asshole is going to tell me that Jesus loves me.

Before we say there is no micro-organism causing this, remember how long it took to isolate and identify the HIV virus. It could be a variation on the HIV virus or something completely different. There is not enough information- at this point it could literally be anything. "AIDS-like disease" simply means a suppression of the immune system that allows for opportunistic infections that the immune system usually quashes. There could be a whole range of conditions that could cause this from genetics, infections that cause temporary suppression of the immune system to various sorts of failures at a systemic level that are rare and we don't know a whole lot about.

Coming Soon in Operation Hammerhead ____________________________________________ Scorpius Sector Evergreen, Agricultural Colony Evergreen University Campus Student Union Jeff Mason looked across the chess board at his opponent. It was rare that anyone could give him a good game. This kid wasn’t it. Mason's genetically engineered intellect could see twenty moves ahead. His bishops and knights slashed into his opponent’s flanks, his rooks smashed straight ahead, and his queen powered her way deep into enemy territory. Checkmate. The freshman sighed and said, “I like to play against strong players. It makes me better but every time I play against you, I seem to get worse.” Jeff said, “That’s because you do.” The kid said, “What am I doing wrong?” Jeff said, “Most people fall into patterns of play. It’s perfectly natural to use the strategy and tactics that you’ve had success with. The problem is that pattern fails you when you play the pattern and not your opponent.” “How do I learn to do that?” Jeff replied, “You’ve got to play a lot and with many different players.” The freshman nodded and took his leave. Jeff remembered the only person that could consistently beat him and wondered what had happened to his old nemesis. So much had happened in just a few years. He picked up his tablet computer and headed back to his apartment. As he was walking across the quad, his computer chimed that he had an incoming message. He looked to see an unfamiliar email address with the subject line “heads up”. He stopped and read the message: Jeff- You will have two visitors late tonight. They are OK. Listen to what they have to say. The New People live! -Marion He stood looking at the message like he had seen a ghost. As far as he knew, when the Ministry of Justice thugs had arrested him and his friends, Marion was the only one that had gotten away free and clear. The New People was Jeff’s creation. A group of illegally genetically engineered kids, for a few short months they had made headlines all over the Alliance as they fought for their rights. They had used non-violent pranks and tricks to make a horrible nuisance of themselves to local system authorities on Mars that oppressed genetically engineered persons. The authorities hadn’t seen the humor in their pranks. Their group had been labeled terrorists and hunted down ruthlessly by the Ministry of Justice. Of the original six, only Marion had gotten away. They had all been split up and sent to the far corners of the Alliance forbidden ever contact each other as a condition of their parole. The authorities had sentenced him to probation, given him a fine he might be able to pay off before retirement and sent him away to a cow college on Evergreen to study Environmental Engineering. He would be sent further into the frontier to terraform new worlds. They wanted to safely stash him away from the core worlds to keep him and his cause out of sight and out of mind. Many illegals suffered no discrimination at all while others were hunted and murdered by religious fanatics. His native Mars had been a hell hole. On a horrible night almost a decade before, Jeff and his friends parents had been murdered protecting their children from an angry mob. They had never forgotten it. He continued walking to his apartment with his head spinning from the abrupt reminder of the life that he thought that he had left light years behind. * * * * Jeff was almost dozing when the knock came at his apartment door at a little before one in the morning. He knew that he was under surveillance by the Ministry of Justice. Why had Marion been so reckless to try to contact him this way? He opened the door to his apartment and found a set of identical twins waiting. They appeared to be about twenty and were tall, muscular and exceptionally fit. Their faces were tan and they had long straight jet black hair. Both were dressed and carrying backpacks like students but their bearing was completely different. Their eyes said something else that gave him pause. One was carrying a pizza box and the other had a six pack. The one with a six pack said, "I'm Sean and this is my brother Seth. Marion told you to expect us." Jeff said, "Come in and pull up a chair. How is she?" The two brothers entered the apartment and closed the door. Seth produced some kind of electronic device from his backpack and swept the room. He looked at his brother and shook his head. He then took out another gadget and turned it on. A red LED indicator light started pulsing on the device and he placed it on the coffee table. He said, "The jammer is active. We can talk." Sean said, "You've been out of touch for a long time. You got shipped off of Mars as soon as you got arrested. Marion sent us to fill you in." There had to be some way to authenticate these people. They made Jeff nervous. They looked like Ministry or maybe the military. He asked, "What is Marion's cats name?" Sean answered, "Pouncer." He opened the pizza box and handed Jeff a beer. Seth opened up a data crystal reader and a holographic image of Marion appeared: Jeff, you've been out of touch for a long time. The Alliance hid you away very well and we've only just been able to find you. You started something with the New People that shook the Alliance to its core. When I got away from Mars, I thought it was all over but nothing could be further from the truth. Illegals exist in vast numbers all over the Alliance. They live in fear and hiding. My two messengers were originally genetically engineered to be soldiers for a corporation in the Succession Wars of a little more than a decade ago. Things really have changed. We are no longer a group of kids playing pranks. There are thousands of us now with cells all over the core worlds and many of the colonies. We need you back. No one has the moral authority to lead us like you do. Sean and Seth can get you on a starship that we have waiting and off planet. Now is our time. We need you to lead us to freedom. As the message ended, Jeff realized that he had been holding his breath. His heart was racing. He stuttered, "Me? Why me?" Sean said, "It's your writings. They've been put together in a pamphlet. It has been banned by the Alliance but that only makes more people want to read it. When they do, they feel the same outrage that we do for being branded like cattle and tracked like criminals just because of the way we were born." As Seth put the data crystal reader back in its case, Jeff asked, "When do we leave?" Sean said, "After we eat. We are going to be busy and might not get another chance for a while."

The true test of speculative fiction is can you see it? The answer is yes... and it's chilling.