Timewaster's Guide Archive

Fun tip
Often it is cheaper to buy a Case & Power supply, than just a powersupply.  

Cool enough
Anyway
I missi the old Rifts games,  though my problem with Rifts was that everyone seemed Godlike after 1 or to campaigns.  
The GM had to bring in some massive Beasts to challenge the players.  
Absurdly massive

I ended up trying to kill off mt Bountie Hunter once, so I could roll a more average person, and I COULDNT KILL HIM
I keept at these heroic risky deeds.... and kept rolling saves!  In the end, he killed the 100m tall MDMonster, Destroied the parties APC, Burned down the Town, and had a brusied knee

ANyway
I was disapointed that it was N-GAGE, a platform I have NEVER been impressed by, even after the Taco with a screw-in cartridge design.
I would LOVE to see a Rifts on PC,  something with some real meat, Can you imagine the development effort of a Baldursgate or Fallout applied to Rifts!?

Wow, poorly worded, but I got the jist

My personal method is to have 1 opperating DHCP server and a second server with DHCP configured, but not running.  (That way if DHCP1 crashes hard I can turn on DHCP2 service while I rebuild 1)
On both I make SPECIFIC Exclusion ranges of 1 adress for each static IP and the I name it to the device which holds the static.  I then create another exclusion range that holds the unused static IPs I already set asside, I just update this as I go.  
I also bottom or Topload all my statics in a range.  

But this way I can figure out ALL OPEN IPs in one glance at the DHCP table and track it all from 1 spot.  

It takes a little longer in the short term but it's one of those ounces of prevention

Very!
Thats my senior prom date your talking about!!

Yes, Carrie Fischer likes to say that about George alot
"You can write this stuff but you cant say it"
"No direction"
etc...

Thats why Lucas went and got a Dialogue coach this time after Coppola "suggested" it.  
(By Suggested, I think Coppola put the Coaches contract in front of Lucas and a gun against George's head,  Told him that either George's Signiture would be on the contract or his brain)

Seriously, I think that my biggest critique of EP2 was that the lines between Anakin and Padme, especialy at the Lake Retreat, were just so poorly delivered.  
I mean if you were to read a transcript of the scene, you can see that it had real potential.  
But it was bungled on delivery.

The really amazing thing is that Lebenon is a nation of  3,777,000.  And over 1,000,000 showed up
That is over 1/4 of the nation's population showing up at a freedom rally
That is an amazing sign

To give a comparrison
That would be the equivelant of a rally in the USA with 120,000,000 to 150,000,000 people showing up
Can you ever think of a time where 150 Million Americans felt strongly enough about an issue to show up at a protest/rally?


Oh and I am sure that some people are thinking about that pro-Syria rally in Lebanon last week.  
Here is a fun fact
in that pro-Syrian Rally was 1/3 of the work force of........


Syria!!!

Thats right.  The Syrian Government and pro Government organisations bussed their own people into Lebanon to stage an anti-freedom rally
That seems an awfully desperate measure,  I think we know why now.  

Syria has an American Military, that has demonstrated that it will not be halted by beurocratic smokescreens in the UN, sitting at it's back door.  It has 1/4 of the population of Lebanon VOCALY demonstrating against them on the other side.  And it has it's own opressed people inside it's own boarders looking to the government to see if it is as strong as they thought.  If it's not, maybe the people of Syria are thinking that, Syrians can have elections and freedom too.  
Afghanastan gets Democracy
That is just a single point of light
Iraq gets Democracy DESPITE the efforts of thugs and murders
That draws a line of light between 2 points across the Middle East
Now if Lebanon gets freedom... That gives a 3rd point... enough for a shape, the shape is the new wave of freedom across the middle east.  
Democracy will bring prosperity
Prosperity will make the people happy
happy, prosperous people dont blow themselves up in suicide bombings.  

Much of the Anti-American/Anti-Isriel sentiment in the region is a political tool of the corrupt regiems to focus the misery of the people away from the cause of that misery.  
It allows the rulers to opress and steal from thier own people and say, "You suffer not because of me, but because of Isriel and America"

It is the toung of Sauroman, in the mouth of the Prince, King, Caliph and Dictator in the region

keep in mind that
Each nation has it's own intrests
For 1 nation to climb, another must decend
Currently the US is at the top of the Geopolitical ladder in respect to economics and Might.  

Therefore,  any nation that wants to get to the top has to displace the USA

Thus I am not supprised that many of the upper echelon nations have taken the current global instablity to help better their own situation at the expense of the USA.  

From a completly Machivellian standpoint, I could easily see the Italian Government setting the US up for a fall by not communicating this event.  This would allow the global community to give the US another black eye in the aftermath and possibly isolate it from more of it's allies.  

Keep in mind that this therory is entirely speculation and based upon an unporoven assumption that National leaders are only concerned with their own nation's advancement.  

That said,  I have found that many of the comments and criticisms from Europian posters on the internet tend to believe, as an article of faith, that GW Bush's motivations are just as, if not more selfish than the motives I have pointed out above.  The concept that GW is an Idealist in the cause of liberty is laughed off as Jingoist fantasy when it is just political optomism.  

So, yes, there is tension.  In the US, it feels like we are the ones trying to fix the world's problems, while Europe sits back with a "you will fail so don't try attitude"

I am guessing that in Europe (from other statements I have read) It feels like Europians are respecting other nation's privacy while the US keeps barging in and barking orders.  

As to where I stand...  Well, I believe in what we are doing and I think that evidence that it is working in currentl displayed with the possible pull-out of Syria from Lebanon.  
I think Bush applied preasure at the correct point to effect a series of events that will lead to the mid-east equivelant of the fall of the Berlin wall.  

But I would be classified as an Idealist and Optomist.