Show Posts - Astrocyte

205

Politics / Re: My view on abortion, and both parents rights to the baby.

« on: April 23, 2011, 05:08:38 am »

I am responding to your assertion that the mother should have no say in it whatsoever if the father is willing and able to provide for all her care plus a cash bonus.

206

Multilingual / Re: Questions about English?

« on: April 23, 2011, 04:47:37 am »

Hi,

I am happy to help with any kind of English. I don't want to speak for other people, but I'm sure one of us will be willing to answer almost any kind of question. Actually, when I made this thread, I was specifically thinking of sayings and regional phrases and Internet speak -- the things that you don't learn in dictionaries and workbooks

(Although we're not going to do anyone's English homework

)

We can certainly try to help with both American and British English. Most Americans and Brits are familiar with both.

Quote from: an alien on April 23, 2011, 03:38:42 am

Suggesting to all tutprs: add a translation underneath your english message so people know what language you speak, and so they can understand you mean to help them. Not everybody knows English, that's why this thread's here.

I added the names of other languages volunteers speak in the first post. That way, if people want to PM a person who speaks a specific language, they can quickly find that person.

207

Politics / Re: My view on abortion, and both parents rights to the baby.

« on: April 23, 2011, 04:16:21 am »

There isn't an equal resolution to this dilemma. It's an inherently unequal process: Ejaculating doesn't carry any permanent health risks. Pregnancy does.

Suppose the father could provide so much money to the mother that she could afford the finest medical care, plus expenses for time and trouble, and then raise the child himself so that the woman never has to put forth an erg of effort ever again. So what additional amount of money is equal to the time and trouble of a woman having to wear Poise pads for the rest of her life, because she got a massive vaginal fistula from a botched episiotomy? Or having to explain to her family and friends that she didn't want to be the way she was those past few months (knowing that a good chunk of people think depression isn't real and won't believe her), lose her job due to the length of treatment (taking a hit to lifetime earning potential), and then come up with an answer in job interviews for why she lost her last job and wasn't working those months, all because of postpartum depression? If she's comatose or dead from eclampsia, how much money (and paid to whom) fixes that?

Not all medical problems are fixable or reversible. To theorize that there's an amount of money that's "enough" to force a person to take significant and permanent medical risk -- to buy a person's body -- is to deny personhood, regardless of the perceived value of the result.

This is why drug companies don't offer you $10,000 to take either their pill or a sugar pill for a week. Once you offer enough money, everyone will say yes regardless of the risks, and the international medical community has agreed that this is an unethical thing to do.

Now suppose we're in a magical universe and there are spells that completely cancel out ALL the inconveniences of pregnancy and the healers at St. Mungo's can completely prevent or repair ALL the potential medical problems. Does this then force the debate over to the relative value of the pregnancy?

(Interesting that when I'm reading this thread, my ads turn to: Michele Bachmann; baby name websites; pictures of cute children playing on Stainmaster brand carpets; weight loss scams.)

208

Multilingual / Re: Questions about English?

« on: April 23, 2011, 02:26:32 am »

On the forum and in chat, I've seen several people say things like "I wish I understood English better" ...

So, here's a thread title change and a bump.

209

Prisoner's Dilemma / Re: Prisoner's Dilemma

« on: April 23, 2011, 01:57:36 am »

This would make more work for the organizers, but you could further maintain anonymity by numbering each matchup, rather than numbering the prisoners. In other words, when you post results, rather than calling it "Prisoner 186 vs. Prisoner 375", you could just call it "Round 1 - Match 6." That way, no one can look at all of Prisoner 186's decks to try to find a pattern.

P.S. I really love this tournament idea.

210

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: better starter decks

« on: April 23, 2011, 01:09:12 am »

I don't see any need to put rares in, but I'm all for better and/or bigger starter decks. Deckbuilding is definitely part of the fun, but when it takes a lot of time and electrum to get any real number or variety of cards, it's not an incentive to play around with decks and build your own deck -- it's an incentive to go look up someone else's deck in the forums and focus on building and using only that deck.

211

General Discussion / Re: Whats the weirdest thing YOUR creature has mutated into?

« on: April 23, 2011, 12:58:55 am »

A Steam Machine with 1

Destroy.

I pictured sending it into battle, saying "Ok, Machine, go!" and instead of fighting it blows up.

212

Forum News and Announcements / Re: New Plugin: Quiz

« on: April 23, 2011, 12:54:04 am »

Future quiz authors should mind the response time limit -- i.e., if you give 5 seconds to answer, don't write a question like "Put the last five elements of the periodic table in reverse alphabetical order with no spaces or punctuation."

213

False Gods / Re: Epic survival against false gods (DG, neptune, ferox)

« on: April 17, 2011, 10:27:24 pm »

Okay, this isn't against one of the Impossible gods, it's against Destiny. BUT I'm running a mostly-unupped FG deck -- Essence's Essential Newbie Farmer (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5656.0.html) with a couple SoGs and upped pillars thrown in.

So Destiny has his Fallen Druid improved-mutate a Condor and it JUST HAPPENS to turn into:

Just in case you can't believe your eyes, it's a Grey Nymph with a 1

mitosis. All I have out is an Otyugh and it gets afla'd before I can quint it. F#@K.

But the fate eggs and mutates aren't making any big creatures, and by the time my field is filled with Malignant Cells, I have 4 Dimensional Shields in my hand. So I figure, what the heck -- they're doing 23 damage a turn, let's ride this out.