DarthTofu

*Slaps hand to face* Dear God, Eagle... How cold is Germany? Because I've a feeling that you'll be in a far warmer place when you pass on.

Not just you, Scath. Same story on Mac and PC. They're brand-spanking-new icons in most cases, I think.

Active forum members? We've got me, Mad, Krytos, Rob, and Eagle on the "regulars" committee. The big E, big J, SOCL, Tex, and GAT swing by from time to time... I've gotten a lot less regular in my posting- possibly because I've become more bored with some topics of late. It takes so long to load most stuff, I don't even open the randomness thread half the time...

You bet they won't act immediately unless they see some evidence... Would you like me to proofread? Consider yourself beaked, my friend... P.S. - The proofreading offer is sincere. You jerk! I've gotten lax in the weeks that you've been away, Scath- I must take to waiting for spellcheck to work it's magic once more! I'm a terrible speller, as some might have noticed but thankfully M.S. Word has the magical red lines that alert me of any errors I may have made. PM me an E-mail address and I'll link it to you, though- it can never hurt to have another pair of eyes look everything over. Around Sunday I'll try to get around to uploading the paper to PDF form- right now I've got free time, but only a little bit of sleep, so I'm going to go remedy that for a little while...

Have a heart attack? Don't you mean your pacemaker would short-circuit?

Er- how do you create a PDF document? I have no clue... I actually do intend to revise the paper a bit and send it in to Congress, but I don't think Congress will act immidiately upon seeing the report. It's going to take some actual evidense that new programs can work. Instead, I'm going to submit this paper to the Florida State Legislature in June, when I'm in Tallahassee, participating in Boys State and hopefully meeting some members of the House and Senate of Florida. That these programs aren't having any effect is pretty disturbing- they're just a waste of over 100 million dollars right now. Revise 'em, or give more of that money to free health clinics and the promotion of getting checked- that's one of the biggest issues that's leading to more cases of infection: people aren't bothering to get checked on anything approaching a regular basis when they're sexually active. Hopefully some experts can be called in to help draft the new programs, with accurate information and and relevant teaching styles. We have tons of budget cuts going on right now in the schools- we're losing AP classes if they have less than 25 students in them at my high school right now. (AP Physics, thank God, being the sole exception so far) Members of the faculty are being shifted all over, and some folks are losing their jobs- it's hell. A new program, that everybody can agree on, that's fully honest, might be able to help cut down on those issues. Hopefully.

*Wets fangs* Are you familiar with a 2007 report by the Department of Health and Human Services in cooperation with the Administration for Children and Families? http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb/content/docs/comprehensive.pdf You can read it if you want, or you can trust my summary of the 50 + pages of info there. Bottom line: Safe sex education has no impact on when teens will start having sex. It has a minimal impact on contraceptive use. We're talking tenths and hundredths of percentage points at best. Abstinence-only has the same set of issues: Nobody's listening to anyone. I've gone through a lot of studies, and do you know what I found? Not one sex-ed program being evaluated was from later than 2003. Most were from the early nineties (91, 92, or 93). Some kids that were born when these programs were written are being instructed by them. The situation has changed, though- sex has become more prominent now than it was in the nineties. Different rumors are floating around, different escapades are being heard. I'm opting for something totally new: an honest sex-ed program. Neither abstinence-only nor safe-sex gives anything approaching accurate, non-lying info on contraceptives, and neither program mentions anything about the other except in cusory. Abstinence is mentioned a total or sixty times in some safe-sex programs that discuss condoms over three hundred times. Give equal time to both, because abstinence is a way to keep kids healthy- but also give them the real facts, and reach out to who they are today, not their older brothers and sisters. I'm DarthTofu, and I approve this message. Admittedly I went into this with the same preconceptions as Rob, but the studies don't lie- neither abstinence-only nor safe-sex have been very effective (by "very" I mean "even a little bit.") They're outdated, out of touch, and need to be replaced. I'm sending my research paper to Congress once I get the grade on it.

Yay! Controversy time! After all, SOCL's and Tex's throats have both almost healed- we need to get the two slashing at each other once more! As the title says, what's you view on sex education? Abstinence? Safe sex? None? Something new? Be sure to include which type of education you had growing up. For some geezers the answer will be "it wasn't even culturally acceptable!" and for other geezer's it'll be "What the hell, Tofu, I'm not a geezer- I only took sex-ed classes a few years before you did!" I had to write one mother of a paper on this topic, so be prepared for me to start bashing views with my 35 sources of bibliographical information of doom and ten pages of essayness!

You're very lucky that this site has nothing on sexual education, or I'd have been forced to rip out my hair, seeing as right now I'm taking a short break from writing a massive paper that I only just finished the bibliography on. If i had to add one more source I was going to have to rip somebody's head off, because I am totally ready to be done with this paper! Which gives me an idea for how to drag out the effects of writing it...

What I planned to say: That's good news- I like the Del Rey novels for their darkness, for the sense that everything that happens happens for a reason of some sort. My only dissapointment is that they're going to use Troy Dennings again with their future books, and I'm going to get very pissed off when I have to read them in order to get to the next one. Not gonna lie- I'd like to see them reuse some of the NJO authors who did a good job. Stackpole is still a good SW writer, no matter what SOCL thinks, and if a book says "Matthew Stover" on the front cover I will gladly buy it and read it cover-to-cover in one night/morning/day (they sort of melt together when you're reading his works). What I now must say: Holy crap-- Invincible is out and nobody told me?! I thought it wasn't out 'till June!

Holy Geneva! That's nuts! I want a pair, now! Most impressive- though now Mad has every right to be insufferable with nationalistic pride...

Holy crap! Stay safe, Eagle- I don't want to hear about a bomb going off in Germany and then stop hearing from you on the site! That's some scary stuff, man. By the way: I'm awesome.. The site is free, you aren't downloading anything, and most of the stuff is pretty good quality. My only complaint is that it takes a while to load some of this stuff on older PCs. On the Mac it flies through load times. I watched Van Wilder 2: Rise of Taj on there, as well as a few episodes of Supernatural that I'd missed. Great website, that.

... Except the air-jelly stays afloat with Helium. Helium isn't buoyant enough to lift a human and still be small enough to be economic in one of those things. You're looking at, like, a one cubic mile device for a hover car, there.

Actually I meant more like networking two PS2s together. You know, like a LAN or something. I just don't know which equipment I'd need, and I wanted to find out.

might be an interesting little independent film. Jensen Ackles is always funny, and they've Sean Patrick Flannery in there, too. No matter how many other movies I see that guy in he will always be one of the Boondock Saints in my head... No idea when it's going to be released. i just like that line, "I've done things with him I've never dreamed of before!" "Oh? Like what, waited 'till the second date?"

That's just sick and wrong. This is kinda inspiring, though: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN1330327620080513?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0 Think he'll make it? I'm kinda of the opinion that he'll die trying, but if he can, I'll be very impressed with him.

Yeah, I might be able to find this elsewhere, but I'm still going to go for the opinions of people I trust on this stuff: If you want to hook up two PS2s so that you can play two-on-two against someone, how would you go about doing that? IE, what cables do you need? Any chance that they're computer-style cables, like the Cat5 or something? Thanks in advance.

Sorry to be a spoil-sport, Rob, but I tried out GTA IV on a friend's 360. It rocked. Hard. It was tons of fun to just drive around, get in car chases, and blow up cop cars with a semi-truck. I cackled maniacally and enjoyed myself. It was splendid-tacular.

I know it's a Star Wars forum, but a few folks mentioned that they liked Civ IV, and I have a bit of an issue going on with it right now. I'm trying to play by E-mail with a few friends. Starting a game isn't the issue; getting to the next turn is. My friend sent me the file for it via E-mail, and when I opened it the game didn't play- it froze. I downloaded the file and copied it into the save game files. Same result- it loaded up the game and promptly froze. It runs like a dream on single player, so I don't know why I'm having this issue. Maybe the E-mail system isn't working properly? He claims that he had to find the file and attach it to an E-mail for me to take a turn, but when I open the game using the attachment it acknowledges that it's my turn. When I try to start a game, however, it tells me that it's sent the E-mail out, and apparently one came to my friend after I tried to start the game, though he couldn't open it. Anyone know if there's a patch or something that has to be downloaded to make this work? I'm using Civ IV Gold Edition, opening the link for the original game, but my friend is just using the original Civ IV. Could it be a different versions (1.9 vs. 2.0) or something?

Edit: Bagpipe awesomeness.

Dayamn! I'ma bookin' me a ticket to Switzerland! Here's hoping you got to drive more than just a cab, Mad!

Does it come out earlier in Switzerland than the US? We don't get it 'till the twenty-second over here. I'm going to reply to Rob's post by editing this one: I'm not very excited about the new Hulk. He looks way too digital, and the guy that he's fighting is just stupid. Another Hulk? Come on! We did that in the last movie that everyone else whines about! All that the plot seems to have to offer is one massive fight in the middle of the city. It really doesn't look like it's going to go into very much depth with regards to the trauma Bruce goes through when he becomes the Hulk beyond him saying that he'll fight the other dude for the greater good. Whoopdie frigging doo- before he was just a man trying to get through life, and I was fine with that. I thought it was a good plot. Now he's a man on a mission, and that's not the Hulk. If it has a happy ending I'm just going to type "I told you so" over and over and over again. Hulk gets no happy endings.

http://gizmodo.com/372272/video-of-bigdog-beta-quadruped-robot-is-so-stupid-its-hilarious The sequal, for those of you who didn't click the link. I laughed so hard my parents thought I'd gone into cardiac arrest or something. It was great, to say the least. The original is just plain eerie- it does not fall over! I can't believe how it jumped and stuff-- it's madness!

When were they ever?

I may well have to give the Vikings more credit after that picture... Though Pirates still rule the seas! Yar!