Quote from: Flee on April 02, 2016, 07:17:09 AM

Depends on the game. I rarely play with people I talk to anymore, but when I do it's usually Americans who are the worst. Sorry lads. Russkies are typically nicer on Quake and have the better connection while there's always that one American guy trash talking at the bottom of the scoreboard with 300 ping.

Although I did recently get into a game of Halo 5 with the most stereotypical British kid ever. Sounded like he was 8 years old, went by the name of "Boby19293", managed to go -1 kills and 20 deaths up until the very final moments of the game when he managed to get his first kill with a rail gun, and was bitching throughout the entire match about how "roobish" his weapon was. I almost forgot those people existed.

We ran into one of them on ark about a week ago, i forgot how hilarious the 'SHUT YOR MOUF LITTLE BOY' 15 y/0 bonger was. A dying breed sadly ;-;

I actually went back to find the match stats. Here's to Boby, a true legend.

Fair enough. I was honestly not aware of this case. I would argue that societies opinion on LGBT issues has changed quite quickly over here in America since 2012, and I'd honestly be surprised to see a similar outcome today. It will only keep improving as time goes on.

You're right in saying that it will keep improving, but I think you're being too optimistic here. People don't change that much over the course of 3-4 years. It'll take many years, if not decades, for these mindsets to die out. The US is still very conservative and hostile towards LGBT people and gay marriage when compared to other developed countries. The fact that your Supreme Court finally ruled on this does not change much. You say you'd be surprised to see a similar outcome today. This happened less than a year ago. A pizzeria in Indiana made it clear that they didn't support gay marriage and that they'd never cater for one. Their statement was not followed by an overwhelming and unanymous public outcry, shaming them into losing business over it. What happened instead is that they raised close to a million dollars in donations from tens of thousands of supporters in less than 5 days and saw an increase in sales to people supporting them just because of their anti-gay stance. The pizzeria is still in business today and is actually doing rather well, despite its clear anti-gay policy that they still hold on to.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans did not suddenly become 'enlightened' over the course of 3 years, nor are they doing so now because a handful of old judges in Washington said so. This is not something you can leave to them and expect quick results because society is generally becoming more progressive on these issues.

I take my position because I don't believe forcing people to take part in services that they aren't comfortable with to be the perfect decision.

Fair enough. I personally don't think sexual orientation is a ground that businesses should be allowed to discriminate on, but you are free to think that.

Quote from: Mad Max on April 01, 2016, 04:38:22 PM

Quote from: Memerick on April 01, 2016, 04:36:10 PM

Quote from: Mad Max on April 01, 2016, 04:31:28 PM

I think we can all agree that businesses should not legally be allowed to discriminate against customers based on sex, race, religion, age, or disability.

I disagree with this. Being able to deny business seems like a pretty basic right for a businessowner to me, regardless of whether they're wrong or not.

Gee, it's almost as if we tried that already, which resulted in entire areas where certain people would not be served by any business, which is how we arrived at the need to have these laws on the books to begin with.

I figured you were going to take us back to Jim Crow with your response. We don't live in the '50s any more; it's not like your description is even plausible in today's society. The few businesses that deny services to homosexual weddings get ridiculed by the public and just put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Seems entirely unnecessary to get the state involved.

Just gotta point out that this last part isn't necessarily true. When chik-a-filet's more anti-gay stance became public, they saw a massive spike in popularity and had some of their most profitable periods in ages (over a 30% increase in profit during those few months), all due to increased support from others with the same opinion who went to eat there just because they were against gay marriage themselves. Below is a picture of the establishment the week after the whole controversy, with people lining up around the block just to support them.



And while I'm sure some businesses went bankrupt because of it, I remember several other instances where small businesses received a lot of support and tens of thousands of dollars in donations from people who were overjoyed by them 'resisting gay marriage' by refusing to serve gay weddings.

A lot of people are stupid and hateful. That's just reality. And without getting into the particulars of this case, I do believe that sometimes governmental and legislative interference is necessary to combat and overcome that and protect human rights.

It used to be terrible, being a non-weeb on staff. You'd open the chat in the morning and it would literally be nothing but "desu desu am I kawaii yet LC chan?". Fucking disgusting.

Quote from: Flee on April 01, 2016, 08:50:18 AM

Working on my thesis. I have a near ungodly amount of Working Party 29 materials to go through and incorporate in my work.

Ouch

That reminds me I have a stop motion I need to do for my animation unit

I'm planning on using my halo mega bloks stuff though I have no idea what to do it about. I want to do a titanfall parody using the mantis I have.

At least we're both doing something interesting. Privacy related concerns on the upcoming European Data Protection Reform is pretty neat stuff.

Quote from: challengerX on April 01, 2016, 05:44:05 AM

Flee is literally just there for diversity.

And here I thought it was because I'm everyone's favorite mod. :/

Please respond

Edit pending.

Quote from: Flee on March 31, 2016, 10:41:57 AM

Only reason I'd want to get into competitive pokemon is to run a Dragonite with Hyper Beam to finish off the final pokemon(s) the opponent may have. But I doubt it's anything for me. A lot of things to learn first and then the actual battles seem kinda boring.

Far from it, really. Trying to get inside your opponent's head and watching your battle plan come to fruition is quite a thrill.

You might be able to run a Hyper Beam Dragonite if you gave it a Power Herb... it's an item that makes it so you can skip the charge turn for moves like Skull Bash, Razor Wind, Sky Attack, and Hyper Beam.

Never mind, that wouldn't work, I'm dumb. Hyper Beam doesn't have a first turn charge--it has a second turn charge. So that wouldn't work.

Well that's too bad. And I'm sure it can still be fun, but it just seems so slow and a lot to learn to get into, no?

I mean, I play competitive games like Quake that are way more difficult to master than pokemon, but I feel like you can learn and grow a lot more as you play, which makes the whole experience a lot more fun. Pokémon seems to have a pretty low skill ceiling, but a decent entry barrier. Without knowing all of the types, matchups and strategies, you'll get owned badly. But once you do learn all of it, there doesn't seem to be much room to grow, so to say. Poor explanation, I know, but it's late and I'm on my phone.

Yeah, they're probably not allowed to do that.

I'm pretty happy with my skills in all games I play regularly. The only one I'd like to see some improvement in would be Quake Live, but I very much doubt you'd be able to give me any pointers there.

Not sure if I would agree. From what I've seen on the internet, it seems to happen just as often among conservatives. Pretty much every conservative / patriot / right-wing blog, forum, site or facebook group I've visited does this just the same.

"Liberals, yes they really are this stupid."
"They'll grow out if it when they graduate high school, lol."
"They just want free stuff."
"Nothing but entitled people offended by everything."

I wouldn't even consider myself a liberal, but I have seen at least as many conversations shut down and people mocked in a very condescending manner by conservatives dismissing the opposition as nothing but whiny teens wanting to be taken care of. Your opinion probably has a lot to do with the over-representation of liberals in online media and some degree of confirmation bias, but I don't think liberals are any more condescending than their conservative counterparts. The main difference is just where it stems from, I believe. Liberals seem much more likely to be condescending by way of perceived moral superiority ("we're right because we support what's good, progressive and morally righteous, while those who disagree are simply stuck in their old, outdated, bigot and wrong ways"), while conservatives talk down because they think they have reason and experience on their side ("we're right because we support extensions of what worked before based on our experiences and beliefs, while those who disagree are whiny and entitled children with big ideals for the sake of progress and no real understanding of how the world works").

Obvious disclaimer that my observations don't apply to all liberals/conservatives. I just don't think it's correct to consider one group more likely to be condescending.

Needs a Dragonite for sure.

Oh please, at least make sure you're even remotely informed when you make such biased BS posts.

It wasn't just "a few dozen protesters". It were close to 500 skinhead members of several notorious self-proclaimed ultra right hooligan outfits with a history of violence who openly and proudly identify as racist and neo-nazist and deliberately made an appearance at the Easter memorial of the attacks for the sole purpose of causing chaos and turmoil. Most of them showed up clearly under the influence of something, wearing skimasks, throwing bottles at other protesters, police and press, aiming flares into the fields of flowers and signs of respect left by others, making hitler salutes and chanting threats to Muslims in Belgium, harassing the people who were actually there to pay their respects, starting fights, robbing at least 2 nearby stores, breaking windows/traffic signs and commiting acts of vandalism.

Whether or not you agree with them, playing this off as nothing but a "few dozen right wing protesters" in Brussels who were shut down just for being far-right and voicing their opinion is incredibly facetious, biased and simply incorrect.