Re: [OT] Live, the Universe and Fish

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tina Hall) wrote in news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13=
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

> Arien Malec the Summoner ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), a
> Follower of the Rattling Northerly Gentry barked:
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tina Hall) wrote in
>> news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> 
> [Peltast]
>> What the heck's that?
> 
> Beats me. I just took the titles from the source and only
> adjusted the '%s' bit because random races wouldn't fit all
> cases.
> 
> <checking> Hey, there's a comment (recombine):
> Peltast http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9659/
> shields_main.htm

I assume you don't have the internet thingy, and that's a search through 
old usenet stuff locally cached? A soldier who uses a crecent-shaped 
shield, called a pelta. I assume it's a shield title.

> 
> [long attribution]
>> > so where's the problem?
>>
>> It pushes the beginning of the meat of the post down. Kind of
>> like overly long sigs -- distracts with non-essential stuff.
> 
> Ha, I wish I could use a sig. I hope to be able to test it soon
> (unfortunately not by email as they're routed weirdly using the
> other gate), on whether it's Fred or the railroad.robin.de part
> that's responsible for kicking out trailing spaces.

That's perhaps a bit scary -- Tina with rampant sigs.

>> > That's random. I could adjust it to just insert various
>> > spellings of 'RNG' (there are only two at present).
>>
>> 'twould be fun.
> 
> Ah, good. If you have any favorite words you'd want among the
> randomly chosen ones starting with R, N and G, let me know
> (better along the lines of adverbs/adjectives with an R,
> adjectives with an N and nouns with a G).

'Swhat I was thinking too. Hey -- you used the word "adverb"!

Start from phrases:

[Random|randomly] nutter god
[Rather|really] nice guy
Roguelike neanderthal goon
Ranting nutcase gudgeon

OK, um.. go to words.

[Rational|rationally]  
Rectangular 
gent
gibbon
 

>>> [...] English eats other languages for breakfast, or something
>>> along that line anyway.
>>
>> We've mostly stopped that now. Now English eats itself.
> 
> That cannibal!

Mmmm.

>> I got the sense fine, but there isn't an exact equivalent in
>> English.
> 
> 'Just about / barely made <it>.'?

Doesn't have the same feeling. There's "holding on by the skin of your 
fingernails" which has a similar sense but can't be used the same way.
 
> [To think or not to think...]
>> > Evidence suggests you just have occasional lapses, that
>> > usually result in YASD.
>>
>> Oh I'm thinking about what I'm doing, sometimes. I just think
>> the wrong thing. That's not not thinking, that's being stupid.
> 
> I thought not thinking was being stupid.

If you don't think, but can, that's one thing. But if you think in exactly 
the wrong way, for absurd reasons, that's stupid.

>> Well, we don't know what the real NH DevTeam are like, mostly.
> 
> Well, I don't think they lock the bad ones in a dungeon to keep
> them from associating with the newbies... :)

You never hear from any of them.....

[being driven sane]
>> Right, but there are an infinite ways of being insane, and
>> only a few ways of being sane,
> 
> I'm not sure I buy this as is.

Which is the objectionable part?

>> so if you are insane, it is quite unlikely that you will be
>> driven sane by some disturbance.
> 
> Ehm. Nearly happened once, but I found a remedy. :)

Good for you.
 
>> [refuse to be driven anywhere]
>> >> (except by a really nice man with honorable intentions).
>> >
>> > A Taxi-driver?
>>
>> If that's your type, sure.
> 
> My type? I think you've lost me somewhere, probably fell out of
> the car when you tried that U-turn.

"A really nice man with honorable intentions" is what a nice girl is 
supposed to find and go out with. "Honorable intentions" means that he's 
willing to wait a socially seemly amount of time for sex.
 
>> > [YASDs]
>> > I don't understand this. How did you get nibbled to death?
>>
>> Leaning on one of the motion keys, and some beasties came in
>> an started nibbling on me. By the time my finger was off the
>> key, it was too late.
> 
> Oh dear. Didn't you learn anything in Nethack? "Don't lean on
> keys.", should be written down somewhere...

Right, but hitting plants is dreadfully boring.

>> I always think "I shouldn't be doing this" right as I do it.
>> That's my definition of YASD.
> 
> I'm not that quick, it only hits me about a second later. :)

That's because you *stop* when you think "I shouldn't be doing this". I 
think "but this time it will work."

>> >> [technology != magic]
>> >> Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is
>> >> indistinguishable from magic.
>> >
>> > Then that's just another case where these widely known
>> > phrases aren't true/make sense/whatever.
>>
>> But it is true. It doesn't say that all magic is highly
>> advanced technology, though. Think of Inca and Spanish
>> deathsticks.
> 
> You'd have to define highly advanced technology then,

The kind so far beyond what one is used to that not only do you not know 
how it works, you can't understand how you might discover how it might 
work.

> and in
> relation to whom (those using it or those unfamiliar with it).

Unfamiliar.
 
>>> Just like the egg and the hen, there's no question, since
>>> there were eggs long before some chicken-ancestor popped out
>>> of one.
>>
>> Not eggs in general, chicken eggs.
> 
> That's never mentioned, so I doubt that's it.

Sure it is. It's absurd otherwise.

> Anyway, even if it
> is, the first egg where a chicken popped out is by definition a
> chicken egg, because a chicken came out of it. ;P

That's one solution, yes. A chicken egg, layed by a non-chicken.
 
>> >> > Hmmm... There's something missing here. Oh, yes...
>> >> > <tong between teeth> teee ehn <^H> ee ehn ah
>> >>
>> >> That, I don't get.
>> >
>> > 't' 'n' <remove last letter> 'i' 'n' 'a'
>>
>> What was the tong for?
> 
> Tongue. Seemed the reasonable spelling at the time... What's a
> tong?

A pair of tongs is a device somewhat like scissors, but not sharp, where 
the ends have flat bits for holding things that are either very hot or very 
cold. Err. Die Zange says the dictionary. Sugar tongs : die Zuckerzange, 
etc.

Arien