Icewolf

I notice that you refuse to respond to the one IRON poster in this thread. Presumably because shouting from a soapbox makes you feel you are right when you know full well that you cannot answer the points raised and would have to accept that you have charged to war on a whim with no good reason or sanity.

Ok, I have no official capacity within IRON but I am a longish standing member and have served in such capacity in the past. IRON do NOT declare unprovoked wars. We quite simply do not. There are alliances out there that do that, but we are not one of them. What we do do is protect our property. Our AA is our property and we have the sovereign right to state who may or may not be on that property. We did not threaten to start a war with you for no reason. We said that you could face punitive action if you continued on our property without our permission. If you leave it, we leave you alone. No one would force you to join. That would be a ridiculous idea as we would just get an unwilling and useless member. However you have now attacked IRON. Because you took umrbidge with the suggestion that we did not have sole sovereignty to determine control of our own AA. That is aggression. That is unprovoked. We have policy for dealing with you and it will be followed.

Yes 6 million for 200 has a lower profit margin than 3 million for 100. However the profit margin is not halved whilst the turnover is doubled, ergo you make more money per slot for 6/200 than for 3/100. So for the seller it is not a rip off.

I think there are some things which could be analysed to give a more certain prediction. For example, you could probably find a correlation between warchest sizes of the sanctioned alliances and the level of tension in CN politics.

For those of you that are Science fiction fans, you may have comes across the Foundation series by Issac Asimov. This series is premised on the idea of Psychohistory, a fictional branch of science in which statistical analysis can be used to predict Human behavior. Not the behavior of an individual, but of a large crowd. The parallel is of modelling a gas-a single atom is very hard to predict. A billion atoms can be predicted relatively easily. Therefore the future of a billion human beings can be predicted more easily than the future of one. Clearly this is a fiction as far as Humanity is concerned. However part of me wonders if this could be considered pheasible in the realm of cybernations? After all-we are far more basic than a Human Being. Our nations have two ways to interact-war or trade. Our relationships are very clearly defined. We have alliance membership. We have Treaties that all fit a similar template. I do not have the knowledge to know if this is possible or the statistical ability to carry it out even if it is. I am not suggesting that it is true. I am merely wondering about the possibility that it could be true.

When you untick automatic have you ticked it currently being DST?

Why that long? Most degrees are 3-4 years. A few are 5 years. None of that explains why it would take you so long to leave home. If you are lacking motivation then go and find it. One thing I have found is that everyone finds a niche in life. Here is a little lesson that I learned a very hard way. There is no such thing as adulthood. I have an adult job, I pay taxes, I pay bills, I go to adult conventions and deal with adult things. And I feel no different to when I was ten. There was no great flash of adulthood thrust upon me. And I wasted a long time before I realised that. I realised this in a very brutal way. I was in the passenger seat of a car. I had borrowed my parents car and it was parked about two miles away and we were driving to get it. It was a foul night, the road was soaking wet. The car skidded on a corner and ran head on at 40mph into another car. I was the only person in that collision able to make it out of the car. I didn't have a clue what to do. I had even forgotten the number to call if you wanted an ambulance (999). It was the middle of the countryside in the middle of the night. Fortunately someone arrived in less than a minute who took control of the situation and started shouting at me to do things. And I was terrified, numb, unable to think...but I had no choice because those things needed doing. And thats basically adulthood. You aren't going to get a flash of inspiration. There will be no magic transformation. You are just going to have to do things, and the difference between adulthood and childhood is you stop having a choice. You say you don't have the resources to leave home? I get that. Nothing wrong with that. Getting through college with low debt is a smart option. But don't say that is not exactly that...an option. You are in college which means you are smart enough to get a job. You may not want to as it would detract time from your studies, and that may be the correct choice, but it is still there for you if you want to leave home. Now at this point I bet at least someone reading this is thinking I am talking out my arse and jobs are hard to get etc etc. Well I don't know where you live but in my age in my place 20% are unemployed. Flipside is 80% employment. And I can tell you the difference between the 20% and the 80%. The 80% know what I have written above. They know you have no choice but to do things now. Those I know without jobs are not necessarily stupid (although some are) but they are those that either think they can't do things, or are the ones still waiting for mummy to come and put things right for them because they simply are not doing things for themselves. You're an adult now. Do things. There is nothing else to it.

So you estimate living at home until you are 27? That's probably part of the problem. You are not seizing the opportunity to get your independence but are old enough that you have full expectations and responsibility of an adult. As for the difficulty of adult with children vs a teenager and the amount of worries, I have far more worry than when I was 16. I am however far happier than I was when I was 16.

I paid rent for my uni accomodation at 18 and started paying bills at 19 and now have a job at 21 (now 22). How is it going to take you 8 years to start paying them?

Being an adult is awesome. You just happened to have reached the sucky crossroads between adult and childhood, which really sucks. It will get better. Being a young adult is awesome because whilst yes you have to work and pay bills, that is you, doing it on your own, in your own way. Yes it is scary. Yes there are fears of unemployment, debt, death by giant squirrel. But at the end of the day, you can do what you like, when you like, and how you like. You get to decide what happens to you. Especially when your first paycheck and are independent of your parents.

Congratulations on your survival for two years. I'll bring some cake to the embassy-chocolate or victoria sponge?

The OWF is about spin. We all know this. Every post is a delicately spun web written in beautiful owfish. Having spent more time than is healthy reading this, I have decided to construct a translation guide. None of this is aimed at any one person (translation: No one get angry please). It is all supposed to be tongue in cheek (Translation: Please don't quote this at me if I say any of this on the OWF) We wish them well-We wish they would fall down a well, preferably with dragons at the bottom This should have been resolved privately-This screw up is too embarassing for us to have on the OWF I heard about this weeks ago-A rumor went round IRC after the one person I know who goes on CNtel came online Peacemode is for cowards-This is the first time I have had the upper hand in war and I hate that I can't fight more Peacemode is a strategy-Our upper tier is too busy stat hugging or too inactive to fight I have an army of 17 nations-I have an army of two nations that will mutiny immediately after this announcement I really like your new government-I recognise some members of your new government Unexpected-Your OPSEC is at least good enough this didn't make it to CNtel before the announcement. Well fought-There is no personal dislike here right? Right? Please don't come for us when you get the upper hand. Disbanding alliances would be good for gameplay-Disbanding my rivals would be good for my ego You are an irrelevance-This is something relevant people say right? Right? WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME? I am winning all my wars-I seek out the most inactive nations to fight to hide from the fact my coalition is losing. Politics is dead in this game-I am not good enough at politics to be allowed in government discussions We play this game for the politics not the community-Our allies are too inactive to have a community We play for the community not for politics-Please stop mocking the way we lose every war Quality over Quantity-Our nations suck just as much as yours, but there are less of them so its not embarrassing for us to take damage right? We have inflicted more damage on you despite you outnumbering us-My lack of knowledge of game mechanics will become apparent in my lack of performance in war. I thank you for fighting with honor-I thank you for lining all your nations up outside of peacemode We harbor no ill will towards you-We don't have enough firepower to get you....yet. Thats all for now, please feel free to add your own-Please don't mock me in the comments

Bieber is getting worse-his hours late entry to shows, his stupid crap about being a beleiber at the Anne Frank House. Anyway, skilled children performing is not the same as celebrity. There have been many extremely skilled child performers in the past and if we say they should not perform then that is going to be a bad thing. The issue with celebrity culture is not to do with picking up children and letting them perform, it is to do with people being nosy gits and desiring to know the personal lives of actors/models/singers rather than just their musical talent. Provided these children are just listened to for musical talent and we don't see a massive following of their lives then it is fine. And that depends on the parents. As for the child herself, Miss Grace is seriously clever. Seriously. An 8 year old that can hold a conversation like that...its not a case of cute = awesome but the fact she is actually a good performer and way way more mature than the average 8 year old.

It doesn't. Actually, I change my mind-that is impressive. She is 8. And she can remember the lyrics and perform the songs to a live audience with a strong degree of confidence. Seriously. I remember performing in a large school band at a few years older than that in front of a live audience and finding it terrifying, and performing to a much lower standard than that. Yes she is not that good compared to an adult, but rather than taking the attitude of "omg she is awful we shouldn't let kids do this" how about going "wow...she is really talented for a person her age." Society seems to have got warped by the beiber experience where his teen fame turned him into an arrogant !@#$%*. Have some faith

Shrug. Maybe I've been ruined by Rebacca Black but it didn't seem that bad. She is probably 10 btw rather than 6. I'm not sure there is such a problem-her parent's are clearly rich and spoiling her but the cost is probably not that much more than a few luxury holidays. At age 10 I was performing in public as part of my school band, and I am really not sure how much different this is. Provided they teach her to work hard and make sure she knows that she is fortunate to have what she has, a treat like this is not automatically bad.

Anyway, yes it will be beating your head against a brick wall. They are so far removed from the normal world view that they will not only ignore your arguments, they simply won't make sense to them.

I once read a debate on a White Supremacist forum (that was linked to me, its not my normal hangout) over whether having once dated a black man a white girl could return to the enlightened...43 pages of bitter argument with each other followed.

Hmm. Btw, for the OP the Rains of Castemere seems appropriate given his choice of song.

I don't think there is any song that really defines my life. Trying to define anyones life in three or four minutes is going to be impossible. Understanding my own life needs a song that combines a fondness of scrabble, being tormented by strippers and the spiraling sadness that despite 4 years of university during which I had to write many essays on key issues of the day, I am still flummoxed by the question "why are you suitable for this job?" Anyone got a song for that?

Its just a round about way of saying family don't love you no matter what. Spend a week in the divorce courts and child protection hearings and you become a lot more cynical.

That is quite easy to explain. In public people are always playing politics. In private people are often not and just chilling. It is also much easier to be harsh in the OWF where everything is heated and there are dozens of posters and threads can spew out ten pages in a night so tomorrow you are not remembered. When its three or four people on IRC or in one thread it is much harder to be harsh and much more likely to lead to nastiness. As for the OP, I would say paranoia is driving things more now than contempt. Every discussion I have had in the last fortnight has at least in some regard touched on who wants to roll who...apparently every bloc is gunning to kill someone else whilst denying any hostile attention and assuming that someone is coming after them.

I would advise you to pay the tech. Its a bad start to start of in debt. Just arrange to do some 3 mill 50 deals and use the profits to pay off your tech debt.

The original Rainbow Six had a fair few features that made it quite technical, such as the planning phase, the use of stealth, the use of teams etc. You could also lay traps and had to shield hostages from fire etc. Splinter cell was also quite good for that, although less about fighting and more about sneaking. Battlefield with its squads, its commander role and support functions was also relatively good for that. What makes a FPS good in my view is generally linked to how much fire your character can withstand. DO you shoot massive amounts until one is dead or do a few well placed rounds do the trick? The less armored your character the more teamwork is needed and the slower paced the fighting.

I was racing a fast catamaran and they where in slower boats taking part in a slow speed race (comparatively). Both races took place on the same course. On the approach to a mark they and two other boats formed a three sided box around me (there was no way for me to turn through the open side meaning I had to go the last 100m to the mark at about 1/3rd of the pace my boat was capable off, allowing my father to gain massively.

It is a brilliant masterstroke of spin in which one of our brilliant saboteurs manages to make it not at all about IRON and get the focus firmly where it should be, on admiring GATO's war performance.