GasBandit

Staff member
Tomorrow there's an all-hands meeting they've been reminding us about every other day for the last two weeks. It's to talk about changes to the company health insurance. I have a bad feeling about this.
Well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I had feared our insurance was getting cancelled and we'd all be thrown to the tender mercies of healthcare.gov, but instead we just get an increase in our premiums and deductibles, and my HSA contribution is going away. Bleh. But it could have been worse.

Bet you thought I was gonna say THANKS OBAMA didn't ya.

wait.

Shit.
 
Well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I had feared our insurance was getting cancelled and we'd all be thrown to the tender mercies of healthcare.gov, but instead we just get an increase in our premiums and deductibles, and my HSA contribution is going away. Bleh. But it could have been worse.

Bet you thought I was gonna say THANKS OBAMA didn't ya.

wait.

Shit.
Many of the Red States that refused to expand Medicare as per the ACA guidelines do have appalling gaps in coverage. I know in Montana, almost 1 in 4 people are left without access to coverage because of it.
 
I just had to delete a tumble post I made sorting my feelings on gamergate.

Why? Well, I got this message.

Lock your doors. Anyone who thinks these women are right deserve to be forced down and take the bel end.

Yeeeh. Wasn't expecting anyone to even notice my post.

Figured it was best to delete and rethink how best to support the women being harassed.
 
No, Gas, it's because by supporting GamerGate, you're saying that you agree that the reasonable response is to threaten people who disagree with you deserve to be raped. This isn't an isolated response, this isn't an unusual response, this has happened repeatedly and it is a major tactic for the MRAs and SWJs behind GamerGate.

Death threats. Rape threats. Harassing messages that drive people from their homes.

These are not legitimate methods of discourse. If you disagree with someone's position, then you dissect their argument and refute it with your own supported argument. You don't tell them, "I know where you live and I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to kill people who aren't even involved because I'm afraid of what you say. I'm afraid of what you represent so I'm going to lash out blindly."
 

GasBandit

Staff member
There's a separate thread for this, too, as you well know, but I'll just say this -
No, Gas, it's because by supporting GamerGate, you're saying that you agree that the reasonable response is to threaten people who disagree with you deserve to be raped.
Except that is categorically false. There are reprehensible people out there who ARE co-opting gamergate as cover to be reprehensible. That doesn't change the fact that the indie gaming scene and gaming media is an incestuous, collusive circlejerk of social-justice driven malarky. You can tell the real gamergate supporters by the fact that they put their actual names by their support, and keep the discussion's focus where it belongs - on the media. The story moved past a certain woman and her infidelities in August. The stories of censorship, collusion and money trails eclipsed that almost immediately. I myself didn't even hear about it until 20,000 posts vanished off reddit, and I dare say I'm a pretty plugged-in guy.

This isn't an isolated response, this isn't an unusual response, this has happened repeatedly and it is a major tactic for the MRAs and SWJs behind GamerGate.
Wait, the SWJs are BEHIND gamergate now? This is a new narrative I hadn't heard before. Regardless, it's the internet. Any non-zero amount is immediately thrown into the echo-chamber thresher and magnified and rebroadcasted and then copy-catted, because people (not just gamers) are shit.

Death threats. Rape threats. Harassing messages that drive people from their homes.

These are not legitimate methods of discourse.
Absolutely. You are 100% correct that those are not acceptable. That does not change the fact that the actual core assertions of gamergate are correct.
 
Whatever points about ethics Gamergaters think they are making are being completely subsumed by the disgusting behavior of violent sociopaths.
 
The threats and doxxing and what not are coming from both sides and about in equal measure atm. One side just has media support behind it in getting it reported.

All of which is BS.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Whatever points about ethics Gamergaters think they are making are being completely subsumed by the disgusting behavior of violent sociopaths.
Only to those who decided their position in the first 5 minutes and treat anyone who disagrees with them as if they were rapists.

violent sociopaths
Unless I've missed a major news story, at this point they're still just disgusting anonymous sociopaths making threats on the internet. To actually be violent one would actually have to get up and leave the house/basement and involves walking more than 30 paces.
 
It's 27.5 lbs, almost 6 feet long and can click over at 1000 ft-lbs of torque. It's quite exhausting to deal with.
Sounds like you'd need two hands to wrestle it in and out of position.
Just make sure you have enough clearance so you don't bruise your knuckles if you slip.

--Patrick
 
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Don't know where else to post this. Spoilered for disturbing content.

This morning, while driving my wife to her school, we passed a major intersection and noticed something going on on the opposite side of the road. There was a fallen scooter—well, more like shattered scooter, it must've hit something with considerable force—with an elderly woman kneeling beside it. She was wailing over the prone body of what appeared to be her granddaughter. I say "appeared" because I couldn't tell. The kid's face was gone. Completely gone. Half her head was missing, it was splattered all over the road.

There was surprisingly little blood. There was blood, yes, but there wasn't nearly as much as I'd thought there would be.

I told my wife to look away, but I caught a few good glimpses. As far as I can tell, this was a grandmother giving her granddaughter a ride to school, probably to the local elementary school just down the street. Either the grandmother lost control of her scooter and they fell, or they hit (or were hit by) another vehicle. And then, somehow, the granddaughter's face was reduced to a gruesome mosaic on the pavement. There were a few passerbys who were on the phone, presumably to call for an ambulance, though I doubted any ambulance could help.

I'm not a fan of scary or gory movies, but I've seen my share of disturbing pictures on the Internet. I considered myself rather desensitized to death and gore. But seeing it in real life... man... That's a whole different prospect. I'm glad I told my wife to look away, she would've had it much worse than me. But still, I'm going to be picturing that scene for a few days.

When I drove past that intersection again on the way back, there were a bunch of traffic cops directing traffic, because half the road was blocked off by police tape. There were police cars there, along with the first few journalists and TV cameras. The police tape surrounded a pitifully small body covered by a white sheet.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Errgh.

Don't know where else to post this. Spoilered for disturbing content.

This morning, while driving my wife to her school, we passed a major intersection and noticed something going on on the opposite side of the road. There was a fallen scooter—well, more like shattered scooter, it must've hit something with considerable force—with an elderly woman kneeling beside it. She was wailing over the prone body of what appeared to be her granddaughter. I say "appeared" because I couldn't tell. The kid's face was gone. Completely gone. Half her head was missing, it was splattered all over the road.

There was surprisingly little blood. There was blood, yes, but there wasn't nearly as much as I'd thought there would be.

I told my wife to look away, but I caught a few good glimpses. As far as I can tell, this was a grandmother giving her granddaughter a ride to school, probably to the local elementary school just down the street. Either the grandmother lost control of her scooter and they fell, or they hit (or were hit by) another vehicle. And then, somehow, the granddaughter's face was reduced to a gruesome mosaic on the pavement. There were a few passerbys who were on the phone, presumably to call for an ambulance, though I doubted any ambulance could help.

I'm not a fan of scary or gory movies, but I've seen my share of disturbing pictures on the Internet. I considered myself rather desensitized to death and gore. But seeing it in real life... man... That's a whole different prospect. I'm glad I told my wife to look away, she would've had it much worse than me. But still, I'm going to be picturing that scene for a few days.

When I drove past that intersection again on the way back, there were a bunch of traffic cops directing traffic, because half the road was blocked off by police tape. There were police cars there, along with the first few journalists and TV cameras. The police tape surrounded a pitifully small body covered by a white sheet.
Eeeeerrrggghh! X(
 
Don't know where else to post this. Spoilered for disturbing content.
You hear about that kind of stuff on the news, and it's just a statistic.
But when you see it in person, it's...well, it's visceral, is what it is. Especially when you extrapolate the weight that grandma will carry with her for the remains of her life, if she feels she had any involvement. Also, you're assuming the two of them were related, but there's no guarantee. I can think of several equally plausible scenarios, but unfortunately grandma ends up being force fed an excessive amount of guilt in all of them.

I don't know who she is, but I doubt she deserved what happened. My heart goes out to her.

--Patrick
 

fade

Staff member
Can someone explain the popularity of the film Zombieland to me? I've tried it twice, and it just doesn't do anything for me. All I see is an irritating protagonist, irritating sidekicks, unfrightening zombies, and a boring-ass plot filmed in that annoying 2000's style I find particularly unappealing.
 
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Can someone explain the popularity of the film Zombieland to me? I've tried it twice, and it just doesn't do anything for me. All I see is an irritating protagonist, irritating sidekicks, unfrightening zombies, and a boring-ass plot film in that annoying 2000's style I find particularly unappealing.
#1. Bill Murray.
#2. Zombies.
#3. Bill Murray acting like a zombie.
 
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