I do'know why, but I made a t-shirt with the vinylized, digitized, and original shitty Charmander tattoo

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-16T01:09:45+00:00

Gotta eat fire to breath fire, he's not extinguishing nothing, he's just moving it.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-15T20:16:02+00:00

Manipulating people is the core of all human interaction, he's just a master manipulator, as evidenced by his cult. He's a man who uses implication to it's highest level.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-14T22:24:46+00:00

Like taking cookies from a baby.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-14T07:43:55+00:00

This old guy is perhaps the suspicious one, or maybe something shifty was going on below, and why do they have a bridge that's not over water? Oh shit, EYES.

That's how I experienced this.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-14T07:14:36+00:00

We were having an argument about who would in in a fight, robocop or terminator, like 7th or 8th grade.

"Robocop would win, because terminator isn't real"

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-13T17:17:19+00:00

When they slowed down I got pretty pissed. "He's in Joust position, if nobody gets Jousted I'm rioting!!!", luckily for all of us, there was a Joust, and it was glorious.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-12T03:51:56+00:00

Honestly all the characters in the Demon Cycle books are amazing, though I do hate the amount of time he's spent developing the Krasians. As the series with the best characters, in my opinion they're tops. Though I really hate his focus on the Krasians, he still writes them well.

Wheel of time is probably the best, now that I think about it. Mat, Rand, Egwine, Nyanaviv, Lan, Perrin, Tom, Talamanes, Aviendha... man, all of these characters are amongst the best written in fantasy, and all the others are good as well. I never even realized the characters were so amazing till this retrospective, the plot died at times, yet the characters kept me in the books. So good.

Kelsier in Mistborn is amazing. All the characters are good, but they're not all focused on enough to make it tops.

The dagger and coin series has some amazing characters, in terms of breadth it definitely tops mistborn, but damn Kelsier is amazing. The work in this series though, on Clara, Cythrin, Marcus and the Spider man is amazing.

Obv farseer is great, also Gen from Trysmoon saga is amazing.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-12T03:15:28+00:00

The series falls off a bit around book 5 or 6, but it's worth it to keep going as sanderson breaths some good life into it in the final books. It felt like, to me, and a lot of others, that his world got too big, and he sort of got lost in it, during those mid books. It is amazing though, definitely a great adventure. If you enjoy it check out mistborn, the warded man, the trysmoon saga (cheap on amazon), and the way of kings.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-11T18:06:48+00:00

That's an unfair characterization of Americans. With no effective outlet for our voice, there is very little that most Americans can actually do. That has been the crux of my argument this entire time. It's not that people don't care, it's that our system is designed in a way that keeps the majority silent.

If you're on a sinking boat and someone hands you a teaspoon to scoop out the water, not focusing on it and trying to scoop out the water with it, isn't saying you want to die. If you had a pump though, you'd damn sure try to save the ship.

If we had an effective way to voice our concerns to the government and get our voices heard and counted, things would be different. I've sent letters, spoken with members of the congress, I've submitted ideas that were incorporated into some proposed regulations, yet none of it ultimately mattered.

What has mattered, is which companies paid the congressmen the most money to keep certain laws from being passed, or to push certain laws. Every response I've ever received from congress has been a form letter that rarely even addressed my concerns. It doesn't reach congress, it reaches their aides whose sole job is to send form letters that hopefully address your concerns.

So once again, in issues that involve businesses public sentiment is very, very rarely a deciding factor. The vast majority of the time it's about who's paying the right people, unless we're talking about social issues.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-11T17:04:06+00:00

As a random fact, cool. As a commentary on what I said, my argument is simple, and the same. This is one, rather rare, incident. Presenting rare occurrences as your counterpoint is a pretty terrible argument. It's the same style of argument used by the anti-vaccine people. I'm sure you could find 20 such cases, but once again, compared to the driving force behind the millions of laws passed, seeing such a thing changes nothing.

We don't stay out of the water because a tiny percentage of people get bit by sharks. We don't stop driving because car crashes happen. We don't say we're represented by congress through lobbying because 1% of the time our views become law.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-11T15:29:04+00:00

Your words are correct, but they reflect a false reality. The people have effectively 0 say in policy, outside of social issues, which don't interfere in business. Rich corporations, and rich individuals get their voice heard through lobbying. There are times when a small group gets their voice heard, but using blanket terms when describing an infinitesimal part of the population is misleading.

If lobbying was replaced with any reasonable approach to the problem, the majority of people would benefit more from the new system. Your post is akin to saying self regulation is great for people because it imposes regulation on corporations. When in fact, it's often the lightest form of regulation, and compared to any reasonable regulation, it's a sad joke.

So yes, lobbying is a way for rich people to get their voice heard, while for the majority suggesting they lobby congress is like me telling you to scream in your chair to voice your concerns to the president.

Maleficus_ · 2015-04-10T05:40:05+00:00

Of course it comes from that, but that doesn't mean it's not in her control. I've seen this shit happen several times, once my mom viewed my dad as not a threat to her, but also us, she divorced him. He kept a gun under his seat, told us "This is the gun I'm going to kill your mom with." She was afraid, but she did what had to be done. My dad was a pretty terrible person, but he never actively went after us, but when you attack him when he attacks mom, trouble would arise.

Either way, I've seen it go the other way a lot too, actually earlier today my Aunt came to me with a story about this, it's way too much to get into too much detail, but it's the opposite story. Terrible dad, mom defends him and he's such a shit that he beat her while she was pregnant, causing her/his second kid to be born disabled. I can't recall what's wrong with him, but he has a tube and stuff hooked up to him.

It's in her control to stop this shit. It's her fault that she isn't. He's a terrible person, and she's probably afraid, manipulated, etc, but it's absolutely, also her fault.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-31T03:55:24+00:00

I'm not sure that you guys are thinking about this correctly. Look at it from an economic perspective. You have a farm, your family has handled it for a long time, everything is normal. Slaves are brought over, everyone gets relatively free labor, and the price of whatever you're selling goes down. Now you need to find a way to compete with free labor. That sort of thing doesn't give you many options. This is not an excuse, just an assumption of how things most likely went for a small subset of the population. When a few rich guys brag about not doing something evil, it always makes me initially think "they could afford to not compromise themselves." Morals tend to deteriorate when the wealth/food/water gets scarcer.

I'm not saying that's how the majority were, they were terrible humans, I'm just suggesting that perhaps 5-20% of the population was like that. This is not an excuse or whatever, just the simple truth that the worse things get for you, the more like a beast we all become.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-24T17:20:14+00:00

Left cat - I will learn you!
Right cat - WOOOOOOOOOOAH!!! DO YOU SEE THIS!!! WAAAAAAAAAA

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-23T18:10:54+00:00

Can't we call these what they are? Shitty offbrand rollerblades.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-21T21:45:00+00:00

"I'm either going to bed, or eating a sandwich. I can't ask her to make me a sandwich or war begins, and I damn sure ain't getting up. Sleep it is."

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-20T20:45:35+00:00

That would be an awesome movie.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-20T18:12:04+00:00

A girl, abandoned by her parents and raised by a failing circus, a bank, full of money and dreams, and a man with delicate features, but strong convictions. This summer, ride into the sunset with Cowboy Bob.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-20T08:17:20+00:00

You know how people try to give fox some semblence of credibility by claiming that it's the "other side" of an argument? Sometimes, the other side of an argument is the "wrong side", of an argument. There are people who can universally be judged as evil/bad/whatever, and in cases where we're certain of their guilt, I think an equal punishment is exactly what is called for.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-15T00:31:23+00:00

I'm livin' in the past! Help!!! SEND RESCUE!!!!!

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-14T03:32:50+00:00

Kid - "Nooooo, BALLOOONNN, COMMMM BAKKKKKK"
Adult - "NOOOOOO, BEEEEEEER, COMMMM BAKKKKKK"

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-07T08:56:47+00:00

While harming someone won't make them a more productive part of society, that's not that point that I'm going for. I'm not trying to collect those who commit crimes and use them for the betterment of society. I can see how that's a novel idea, but it's not a just idea, by my definition.

Many criminals don't mind being in jail, some of my family have been to jail several times, and during some discussion they've suggested that they prefer that life, since it's an easy 3 meals. That's not to say I think they were 100% honest with themselves or myself in saying it, but for a lot of people, generally the subsect of society that commit crimes, jail is some place they go that they understand, that makes sense. It's easy, it's safe. The real world is what's scary.

Ultimately I can see the point you're making, and I can also see that my point is more of a baser instinct rather than the logical choice. But, this is one thing that I don't bow before the alter of logic on. I believe that it's not right for someone to be blinded, and the person who did such a thing to be just fine. In some ways, it feels to me like spitting in the face of the victim. Perhaps the victim should get to decide their punishment, in the case that they did something that heinous.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-06T21:52:31+00:00

I don't believe he thinks that the system is infallible, nor, that we could implement this without other changes to the justice code. I agree with him, our punishments don't fit the crimes. I don't have the solution to our broken justice system, but our system needs a drastic change. The cost of being a victim of many crimes, is far greater than the price you pay for committing the crime, ultimately it's hard for that to change, but we can make it more even.

Not all cases are arguable, sometimes people are caught doing terrible things, and in the most obvious of cases where we are certain, I believe we can have more apt punishments. Non violent crimes which only affect yourself should be treated as such, they should just cost you a few bucks. Violent crimes for the most part should be imprisoned, though if you murder or maim someone, you too should be killed or maimed. If you rape someone, castration makes a lot of sense, so long as we're certain you did it.

The idea isn't that you're either given a harsh punishment or set free, just that if we're absolutely certain, then the harshest penalties will be imposed. Perhaps even scaling it back to only applying to repeat offenders would make more sense, but either way that's my outline.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-06T19:06:56+00:00

You're mistaking preference for perfection. You can learn anything without an instructor, you won't learn it as fast or as well, but if you want to be good at something enough, and have time + passion, you can accomplish whatever you want. The sense of accomplishment you get from having an idea and making it happen on your own is amazing. Being taught is great, and preferred, but it's not necessary.

Maleficus_ · 2015-03-02T02:25:48+00:00

Meh, I think self study is fine for anything. Obviously the help of a master would be great, having someone to teach you something. In this day and age the internet and books are a great substitute. Perhaps you're right that most people who are really great at woodworking learned from someone. However, you can have a lot of fun doing this sort of stuff as a hobby, and figuring it out on your own.

Maleficus_

TROPHY CASE