Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:19 pm

While I'd hesitate to disagree (partly because it is so wonderfully cynical, and partly because it is largely true), the other side of it is that poor/minority incidents generally have a recognizable motive, whether it is financial, survival or passion. They don't make good news stories because they are immediately understandable and reveal a bit more of the 'dark side' of society than people are comfortable with. (it doesn't gel well with the 'what a wonderful society' myth we've got going)

The 'off-the-rails' incidents get more coverage because every day people really don't grasp them, due to a lack of understandable motive or emotion. It plays well in the same way a trainwreck does, and lets all the amateur psychologists line up with excuses and speculation.

Taishan · Post by **Taishan** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:08 am

K wrote: "Irony" is one of the pillars that reporters considered when determining whether a story is newsworthy, and people find it ironic when people who they expect to be very good (rich whites) act like people they think act very bad (poor minorities). This is why a shootout in a hip hop club will only get a few lines in a local newspaper and a middle-class white guy shooting something up will get national coverage.

I don't disagree with the irony metric but don't forget the 'bad things happening to good people' metric as well. The club shootout is 'bad things happening to bad people' or at least, to people we don't value (unless a Kardashian would be involved!). The Aurora douchebag shooting up a club might have been a media blip but not a media-approved national tragedy like shooting random moviegoers.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:34 am

Lago wrote:I can buy that... and yet still some counterexamples come to mind. Such as Finland or Denmark. Or Japan.

Finland and Denmark still have an exceptional track record for neutrality even if they aren't quite Sweden. Even when they did end up dragged into a conflict, it was usually for direct self-defense. Convincing people to want to defeat soldiers outside their homes is easier than convincing people to want to defeat soldiers outside someone else's home in another country. Japan underwent a fairly radical political climate change between the end of WW2 and now, and are another part of the world entirely. It's hard to throw them into the comparison, though I don't think they break it.

@Shooting Rampages
While all the "nobody cares about the poor and minorities/people expect bad things to happen to the poor and minorities," is very much true, the news is also simply sensationalist. Telling people the same thing over and over again is not interesting to them, so the amount of topical coverage something gets is frequently inversely proportional to how much it actually happens in the real world. They could cover a different club shooting every month, so they cover exactly none at all because that would get old.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:59 am

Korgan0 wrote:and I've heard of them

You might know Kalle Anka as Donald Duck. He gets more votes than many actual legitimate parties. And also more than Jesus. Yes, Sweden would rather have an angry cartoon duck who doesn't wear pants than a religious figure as the leader of the country.

I think Batman rates somewhere between the two.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:52 am

Koumei wrote:
Korgan0 wrote:and I've heard of them
You might know Kalle Anka as Donald Duck. He gets more votes than many actual legitimate parties. And also more than Jesus. Yes, Sweden would rather have an angry cartoon duck who doesn't wear pants than a religious figure as the leader of the country.

I think Batman rates somewhere between the two.

Huh. For some strange reason, he didn't show up in the wikipedia article on that particular election. In all fairness, Australia indirectly elected a prime minister who was practically a cartoon goblin, so I can't say I'm surprised.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:48 am

Koumei wrote:
Korgan0 wrote:and I've heard of them
You might know Kalle Anka as Donald Duck. He gets more votes than many actual legitimate parties. And also more than Jesus. Yes, Sweden would rather have an angry cartoon duck who doesn't wear pants than a religious figure as the leader of the country.

I think Batman rates somewhere between the two.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:18 pm

DSMatticus wrote:
Lago wrote:I can buy that... and yet still some counterexamples come to mind. Such as Finland or Denmark. Or Japan.
Finland and Denmark still have an exceptional track record for neutrality even if they aren't quite Sweden. Even when they did end up dragged into a conflict, it was usually for direct self-defense. Convincing people to want to defeat soldiers outside their homes is easier than convincing people to want to defeat soldiers outside someone else's home in another country. Japan underwent a fairly radical political climate change between the end of WW2 and now, and are another part of the world entirely. It's hard to throw them into the comparison, though I don't think they break it.

I don't think that holds up at all. Sweden adopted its neutrality policy after deposing their king. Before it went into effect, Sweden had seven wars just in the beginning of the 19th century. They adopted a policy of non-aggression as protest for having been involved in way too many wars. Denmark went out of their way to invade all kinds of people, including the Soviet Union in 1918. Norway managed to avoid fighting anyone because they were fucking owned by Sweden and didn't even exist until 1905. Finland didn't get to have any wars because they were owned by Russia until 1917.

Claiming that countries that sat out the 19th century by not existing didn't start any wars during that period is not a fair comparison to anything. Finnish people were fighting in the Russo-Japanese War, they just happened to be counted as Russians at the time.

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 11:28 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Sweden had seven wars just in the beginning of the 19th century

I'd like to point out that the last of the wars you are referring to is two years short of two centuries ago. The U.S. is about that old and no, it does not still actually have any particular anti-British sentiments left in its foreign relations or political rhetoric. You need to roll your clock up a hundred and some years to at least the 20th century, preferably post WW1 because the defining features I kept alluding to were WW2 and the Cold War.

Sweden remained entirely neutral. Finland fought purely defensive homefront wars. Denmark and Norway both threw in with the Allies during WW2, and it gets mostly quiet after that. Denmark is certainly the most aggressive of the bunch, but you're more than welcome to try and come up with a good metric by which Denmark is more militarily involved during this period than the U.S. or Britain or France.

To summarize what I was getting at: getting people to accept military action in other countries requires popular support and that requires propaganda (and/or some reason people will accept), and the more significant and prolonged the involvement the more propaganda you're going to need to maintain that popular support. (Some assumptions of individual power in politics here, obviously, but those hold for the regions we're talking about during the 20th century.) But the message propaganda delivers doesn't disappear when it stops being useful; you're stuck with having altered the belief systems of your citizenry. I suspect extent of Cold War era involvement/militarization would correlate very well with anti-progressive sentiments in Western Europe and the U.S., though I'm not precisely sure how to measure either of those things unambiguously or fairly. And every country's circumstances are ultimately unique and it's not going to be a perfect correlation because something as complex is never going to be decided by only one thing, but I'd bet it's an absolutely huge influence.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:40 am

DSMatticus wrote: I'd like to point out that the last of the wars you are referring to is two years short of two centuries ago. The U.S. is about that old and no, it does not still actually have any particular anti-British sentiments left in its foreign relations or political rhetoric.

What? No, don't tell me that! I still like to believe that on the 4th of July any American who happens to be in London does a stroll in front of the Buckingham Palace guard or whatever and gives them the middle finger while marching past.

I guess that's just my friend from highschool. *Sigh*

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Aug 08, 2012 8:38 am

...apparently "being an actual legitimate party" and "registering" are not requirements to win seats in Swedish parliament. So Donald Duck has better-than-zero chances of actually winning a seat or two on any given election.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 3:50 am

If a female coworker is running around and telling people you're "creepy", is there something that can be done about it? My mom has offered to kick her ass and as much that would make me smile, I'd rather not do anything in violation of the law.

The specific incident is the "lady" in question approached my coworker and started trying to turn him against me. He told her to fuck right off (except more politely, the man's a retired English professor). Keep in mind that they are not of the same social circle and don't really converse except what would be considered typical work conversations.

Also, until something changed, she seemed to like me. she got me small gifts, bought be drinks when we went to the bar, offered me rides. I don't get why she's acting like this.

I'd also like to add that this woman and two others are the core of a campaign to get me out of the store. And they've succeeded. I got demoted, got my pay slashed, got my hours slashed to empty my bank account, and I now have to go a thousand miles away to find a place where no one's heard of me and I can at least make a fresh start with people I haven't pissed off yet with a bit more wisdom than before. Why are they still fucking with me?

Is there something I can do? Or since I'm gone in three weeks anyway, should I just grit my teeth and send them a quart of gorilla poop when I get to my new home out of state?

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:09 am

Well, they are harrassing you. But it's well done. If you had proof, you could go to hr. You might even have a case against them legally, but good luck collecting anything, or getting a lawyer to take the case.

This all sounds like the kind of stupid shit, stupid people do when they have been wronged romantically. Is it possible she was hitting on you, and you turned her down and she went all glenn close on you?

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:29 am

She had a boyfriend at the time. Then again, she cheated on said boyfriend, caught an (incurable) STD, gave it to him, broke up with him to be with the guy she cheated on him with, then cheated on the new guy with the original boyfriend.

... I just read that and my mind is filled with fuck...

Anyway, normally I wouldn't think she was hitting on me. But she's in a hurry to fuck up her life and I am massively oblivious to the affections of women, so it's entirely possible. (Most guys assume even the most casual friendly interactions with a female means she wants his cock, I have had women pretty much demand I nail her right then and there and not have the first clue)

I know for a fact that one of the three women harassing me was in fact interested in me romantically and the third is her best friend. The first doesn't even like the first two, I think she's acting independently to fuck with me rather than as a triumvirate of jimmy-rustling.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:51 am

Couple of questions I need answered to figure out my Logistics and Dragons.

How long does it take a medieval peasant to clear an acre of forest? Assume that regrowth of trees is not a problem, the goal here is to calculate the number of days worked and then fling a large number of people at it to get it accomplished in a short amount of time.

How long does it take to build, say, one mile of road?

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:59 am

Chamomile wrote:Couple of questions I need answered to figure out my Logistics and Dragons.

How long does it take a medieval peasant to clear an acre of forest? Assume that regrowth of trees is not a problem, the goal here is to calculate the number of days worked and then fling a large number of people at it to get it accomplished in a short amount of time.

How long does it take to build, say, one mile of road?

It depends. How good a road and how clear do you want the forest? The latter consists of whether you want the downed trees cleared and the stumps removed.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:07 am

Yes, trees cleared and stumps removed. The point for both of these is they're methods of making travel time faster, both for you and your minions. Probably more the latter, since by the time you have the resources to be building highways you can probably also fly.

As far as how good a road, the system I'm working with generally assumes that whatever patch of wilderness your campaign takes place in starts with little or no roads, mechanically speaking, but obviously there won't literally be no roads at all in a standard D&D kingdom. So we're talking about building super-awesome Roman roads or a near-enough equivalent.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:05 pm

@Ted: I'd say fuck it. You're already on the bad side of the stick. In any workplace I've ever been in I've found that talking to and getting friendly with people is the easiest way to keep your ass out of trouble. Being popular mitigates some of the damage you can cause by legitimately fucking up, allows you to slack off more, and puts you further ahead in line for advancement even if you don't deserve it. Now this may sound bitter (and it is) but since I don't want to advance right now and cause I do a job that's largely labor with free time to think to myself I haven't bothered with it. However, you sound like you have to deal with the assholes you work with so that's your best bet. Failing that you should at least become casual acquaintances with the louder people. That's what I did at my job, so now I can hear about all kinds of shit going on without personally having to swallow much pride to keep myself out of trouble. Playing the quiet guy is also an option but as soon as something bad happens or someone decides they don't like you, you're screwed.

TL:DR: Nothing to do now but wait, leave, become more popular at your next job.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:59 pm

I still think I will give some business to poopsenders.com when I get settled.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:19 pm

How long does it take a medieval peasant to clear an acre of forest?

How long to cut a tree, move the remains, and pull the stump, times 400. More a question of how do you get permission, I'd imagine. If you cut all the trees, how does the Kings son find enough Goblins to earn easy XP?

You want canals anyway, not roads. Real traffic moves on water, mostly downstream to the coastal river cities. 'S why all the cities are at river mouths and major junctions in the first place.

EDIT: Oh, and Ted, I've heard of that spurned woman taking reprisals when nothing actually happened thing before. It's basically the same thing those crazy-ass murderous stalker men do to women who ignore them, only more social fuckery and be careful with your toothbrush kinda fun than knives to the throat like the gents pull (I've also seen that, only no one actually saw it because he sneaked up on her away from the party, and the prick got away with it).

I would recommend forgiveness and strict avoidance. She gets to stay crazy, you get to stay away from her, which is a huge life victory for you.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:09 pm

pre industrial land clearing was a seasonal project. Clearing an understorey, letting it dry out and burning it off a few months later. There may have been some slash and char as well, particularly in countries with regulations on clearing (medieval Iceland and Finland had some limits on logging; sometimes adopting 'forest fallow' plots of land).

Without shit like bulldozers, modern accelerants, explosives and trained specialists, with the desire to clear the land 'immediately', you would be looking at upwards of 35-40 man hours to slash and burn a relatively dense virgin hardwood forest. Most of that would be the disposal of the slash. Large diameter hardwood and pine trees would still remain. Depending on what resources you had available, you would be able to cut or saw most of them, but you would preferably have a sawmill in the vicinity in order to actually utilise the wood. Again, by hand, I would guess that it would take a similar amount of time to fell and remove those trees. So 70-80 man hours per acre.

Even then, some tree stumps would be too difficult to remove, even by employing work teams with crowbars and oxen. Your best bet would simply be to char the stump down to the base, as most the more troublesome remains could then be buried and would decompose 3-5 years after that. Exeptionally troublesome trees would probably be best left in place. There is no way you're going to dig out some ancient redwood and you would probably need an entire community of Amish to perform one of their mystical barn-raising montages in order to pull out the stump of a 300 year old walnut in a single day.

You could probably halve the time if you had access to mammoths and earth elementals and shit. That's my best guess.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:07 pm

Hell, yeah, if you can call up an earth elemental or a xorn, tree stumps are easy as shit, they get under it and push it up, possibly while you're pulling on it.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 7:04 pm

I've got a new cheap cell phone. I'm trying to send a text message, is there anyway I can correct a word without deleting all the text and starting over?

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 9:29 pm

Usually one of the arrow keys or something will be backspace. You might have to try a few different buttons to figure it out.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 5:02 am

anyone do long-distance table top gaming?

I'm leaving town in a few weeks, and my players have asked about the feasibility of me getting a webcam and continuing to run a game from my new habitat.

The simplest thing is to use skype to video chat with a laptop and have that at the head of the table.

I'm tempted to rig up a webcam on a remote control car with some sort of arm and have it controlled by the wireless card on the computer I'll be on. I am vaguely aware of ways to control computers remotely, but it's been years since I've actually used such a system (Symantec PC Anywhere is what I used back in "the day"). That would be difficult, but if I got it right, it would be THE TITS.

Anyway, anyone ever DM a game like that?

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 6:48 pm

Ted the Flayer wrote:anyone do long-distance table top gaming?

Anyway, anyone ever DM a game like that?

I do Play-by-post, but I've also done play over IM with a couple of buddies in NY. Skype would work fine, IMO, as long as your connections are good.

I wouldn't bother with video, personally...I'd just have an online map that people could modify.