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You don't want to know.

2 (2.9%)

You NEVER *want* to know.

26 (37.7%)

Subscriptions to his Porn Datbase.

10 (14.5%)

Marigold wants the Hentai directory.

7 (10.1%)

Target practice with Yelling Bird.

5 (7.2%)

Olympic 10 meter AI Room Tossing!

0 (0%)

Get a job at the library - cataloging the Victorian Porn.

6 (8.7%)

He wouldn't; he's saving up for a new, bigger chassis.

2 (2.9%)

Get a job working at LANperk, the new chain of coffee stores!

2 (2.9%)

Working in a shipping warehouse for a webcomic merch store.

3 (4.3%)

Insert Meme Here.

1 (1.4%)

Find Marten a roommate who'd pay the rent.

5 (7.2%)

Total Members Voted: 66

[GarandMarine]

I find it insulting in the same way I find sport/olympic fencing insulting. One does not take a weapon art and making an amusing game out of it.

So... Olympic 50m pistol is out? Clay pigeon shooting? Biathlon? The sort of shooting contest depicted in Magnum Force (I don't know what it would properly be called)? Don't you and your shooting-buddies compete for scores, or who can shoot the smallest group, or whatever? How do you train in any martial art, armed or weaponless, without making it essentially a game? You can't actually deliver lethal strokes on the practice mat, so the process becomes a competition for touches or points. On the other hand, for example, many traditional shifu do take a dim view of competition styles which are pretty much wholly divorced from martial training, no matter how skilled the practitioners (and Chai Fong Ying is very very good)..

The Olympic shooting competitions lost credibility with me when they started using lasers for some competitions, clay shooting is solid tracking and movement training and is useful for actually killing delicious birds, not to mention again, tracking, moving target shooting, etc. I was more leaning towards the second point though, competition styles (kendo, olympic fencing, certain forms of point sparring) aren't martial training, I certainly don't claim to be at the level of a sifu, sensei, or any other master (I turned down a black belt specifically because I don't feel I'm at that point yet) but I concur with that view point which is fairly common in martial communities, but again I'm the kind of individual who would happily join the dog brothers if they were in my area. So feel free to take my view points as the hate speech on sporterized martial arts that it is.

[Is it cold in here?]

Abstinence-only sex educator?

[bhtooefr]

Anything involving the word "qwerty". (Moderation of a keyboard forum, maybe?)

(A word so offensive to AIs that PINTSIZE recoiled in horror.)

[Carl-E]

In that case, I wonder what Dvorak means...

(and I really didn't know that there was only aq distant relation to the composer... and that it's not pronounced that way.)

[Nepiophage]

Pintsize would peddle secret film of Marten with Dora and Faye with Angus.
Yes he would.

[Is it cold in here?]

Pintsize might find cat-sitting unpalatable as a job.

[calmcalamity]

Really? I just thought someone came in and vomited 70's all over her.

Mr Furley called. Even HE doesn't want that outfit back.

What, seriously? That dress is awesome. If there was one good thing the 60s/70s gave us it was clothes like that.
Also

What on earth is Faye wearing? Is this actually a style in the USA? The colour is good for her, but... It also seems to be "wear white belts to work day", and white belts are naff IMHO, but YMMV of course.

she's worn it before, back in October with 2289

[Masterpiece]

and IIRC people told Jeph it was a super cute dress, so I guess he wanted to use it again.

[jwhouk]

So how WOULD Pintsize find the money? (Sorry, only one answer)

You don't want to know.    1 (3.2%)
You NEVER *want* to know.    12 (38.7%) [/i]
Subscriptions to his Porn Datbase.    4 (12.9%)
Marigold wants the Hentai directory.    3 (9.7%)
Target practice with Yelling Bird.    4 (12.9%)
Olympic 10 meter AI Room Tossing!    0 (0%)
Get a job at the library - cataloging the Victorian Porn.    1 (3.2%)
He wouldn't; he's saving up for a new, bigger chassis.    0 (0%)
Get a job working at LANperk, the new chain of coffee stores!    0 (0%)
Working in a shipping warehouse for a webcomic merch store.    2 (6.5%)
Insert Meme Here.    1 (3.2%)
Find Marten a roommate who'd pay the rent.    3 (9.7%)

Total Members Voted: 31

[Rghfrgl]

she's worn it before, back in October with 2289

Tai needs to stop being so adorable.

[Method of Madness]

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. (Nor should it)

[mtmerrick]

I think it would be a bit hypocritical of her not to...

Also Insightful. If this world is like ours, she'd have no excuse. The fact that she's been careful about who she tells implies that it's something rather less socially acceptable than, say, being left-handed.

my mother was born left handed. she still  has the scars from where the nuns beat her hand until she stopped using it.

[Carl-E]

She said socially acceptable, not Catholically acceptable. 

[Loki]

socium, n: a community

[Carl-E]

At large? 

[Is it cold in here?]

One job I can't picture Pintsize doing is watch repair.

How do AnthroPCs without hands hold a job?

[Storel]

I shudder to think what, if anything, Pintsize would consider an unacceptable job. 

+1 Terrifying.

[Carl-E]

How do AnthroPCs without hands hold a job?

Or anything else, for that matter? 

You know, like a paddle...

[Method of Madness]

He has hands, just no fingers.

[Storel]

I've never understood how Pintsize even stands on those round feet. Talk about unstable! He must have internal gyroscopes or he'd be falling over all the time. He'd probably have to crawl instead of walk.

[Loki]

Hm. maybe he somehow uses that one theorem about how when you have fieldlines on a sphere, there is going to be at least one spot which is vector-free.

[Carl-E]

...don't see how the "hairy sphere" theorem applies here. 

[jwhouk]

I personally think it's because of "Bellisario's Maxim".

[Method of Madness]

Also known as "a wizard did it".

[ankhtahr]

In that case, I wonder what Dvorak means...

(and I really didn't know that there was only aq distant relation to the composer... and that it's not pronounced that way.)

Yeah, the Dvorak key layout and the composer Dvořák are not really related.

By the way, I type on this:

(Click the image for more info. Sadly on German.)

And by the way:

(Moderation of a keyboard forum, maybe?)

I think I know which keyboard forum would happily accept Pintsize as Mod. (sorry everybody for the inter-forum forum-bashing. This is basically me complaining to bhtooefr, whom I know from another forum, about a third forum)

[jwhouk]

"Neo", hm?

(Insert "red pill" joke here)

[Is it cold in here?]

There was a sex scene in one of the movies which suggested he might have taken a blue pill.

[jwhouk]

She's BAAA-aaack!

[Is it cold in here?]

What will this do to Dora's control issues?

Welcome back, Sam!

[Kugai]

Damn Talents with Teleportation abilities.

[mustang6172]

I was just reading some old comics and thought, "Whatever happened to Sam?"

Also I wonder how Dave and Meena are doing on the baby making front.

[mtmerrick]

Damn Talents with Teleportation abilities.

[Loki]

Damn Talents with Teleportation abilities.

Also known as OffscreenTeleportation on TvTropes.

...don't see how the "hairy sphere" theorem applies here. 

Yeah, that one, thanks! It was the only thing relevant that I could think of.

Also I wonder how Dave and Meena are doing on the baby making front.

I admit my first reaction was "who?  " Then I read the wiki article. I never realized that we got the "Steve eats Cheerios" comic because he really likes Cheerios.

[Method of Madness]

Dora's head is at the top of the panel, so you can't see the exclamation mark above it.

[J]

There are all sorts of issues with carrying a sword in public.

Even if sheathed?

In Australia at least, even with unsharpened edges, sheathed, and in a bag. Australian taijiquan and other martial-arts groups have been trying to get this sorted out for years. Basically, it is down to the judgement of the individual police officers you happen to bump into, so it is best to carry your sword in a bag that conceals its shape.

I find it insulting in the same way I find sport/olympic fencing insulting. One does not take a weapon art and making an amusing game out of it.

So... Olympic 50m pistol is out? Clay pigeon shooting? Biathlon? The sort of shooting contest depicted in Magnum Force (I don't know what it would properly be called)? Don't you and your shooting-buddies compete for scores, or who can shoot the smallest group, or whatever? How do you train in any martial art, armed or weaponless, without making it essentially a game? You can't actually deliver lethal strokes on the practice mat, so the process becomes a competition for touches or points. On the other hand, for example, many traditional shifu do take a dim view of competition styles which are pretty much wholly divorced from martial training, no matter how skilled the practitioners (and Chai Fong Ying is very very good)..

What on earth is Faye wearing? Is this actually a style in the USA? The colour is good for her, but... It also seems to be "wear white belts to work day", and white belts are naff IMHO, but YMMV of course.

Now Hiro knows something about this businessman, namely, that like most Nipponese sword fighters, all he knows is kendo.

Kendo is to real samurai sword fighting what fencing is to real swashbuckling: an attempt to take a highly disorganized, chaotic, violent, and brutal conflict and turn it into a cute game. As in fencing, you're only supposed to attack certain parts of the body -- the parts that are protected by armor. As in fencing, you're not allowed to kick your opponent in the kneecaps or break a chair over his head. And the judging is totally subjective. In kendo, you can get a good solid hit on your opponent and still not get credit for it, because the judges feel you didn't possess the right amount of zanshin.

Hiro doesn't have any zanshin at all. He just wants this over with. The next time the businessman sets up his ear-splitting screech and shuffles toward Hiro, cutting and snapping his blade, Hiro parries the attack, turns around, and cuts both of his legs off just above the knees.

[Loki]

*reads plot summary* this books sounds like it would please my inner outer geek.

[J]

you'd call yourself a geek without having read snowcrash? isn't that illegal under the geek charter or something? you might be subject to some harsh censure if you don't correct that oversight. i think there's a pretty steep fine.

[Loki]

isn't that illegal under the geek charter or something? you might be subject to some harsh censure if you don't correct that oversight. i think there's a pretty steep fine.

Ah, see, there's your mistake. Each socium has different laws on geekery. Where I am from, you are pretty much a geek if you use words like "isomorphic" and "disjoint" in everyday speech. Which I do.

[GarandMarine]

Snow Crash and Neuromancer should still be mandatory reading.

[westrim]

Snow Crash and Neuromancer should still be mandatory reading.

I have not read them yet (mostly due to extensive synopsis and TVTropes exposure making it less than urgent even though they're on my shelf), but knowledge of them at least is nearly mandatory. It's like loving fantasy and not knowing about Lord of the Rings. Movies and not knowing of Citizen Kane. They are part of the bedrock of our cyber world. Loki, you may not need to hand in your card, but you are hereby assigned remedial geek history lessons and some other tasks I can't think of right now.

[Akima]

"As in fencing, you're only supposed to attack certain parts of the body."

That is lazy writing on Stephenson's part. It is not true of épée fencing, for example. Incidentally the "duel" you refer to took place in the Metaverse, with Hiro ultimately hacking the code to drop a safe on his opponent's head as a finishing move, so it was at least as artificial as fencing, with as much connection to real sword-fighting as a round of Call Of Duty has to real warfare. Yes, I have read Snowcrash.

Faye and Dora must truly be oblivious for Sam to have crawled in there. I confess that I twitched a bit at Sam's grammar.

[Border Reiver]

I can accept that, but only because of the Rule of Funny.

And no, I won't apologize for that link. 

Go ahead, click it.  I dare you.

I double dog dare you.

[Loki]

Akima: Jeph is just doing grammar nerd sniping.

[Skewbrow]

Ah, see, there's your mistake. Each socium has different laws on geekery. Where I am from, you are pretty much a geek if you use words like "isomorphic" and "disjoint" in everyday speech. Which I do.

What's so geeky about that? Ok. Doctor Who can make yelling "Of course, Fourier transform!" sound geeky.

[GarandMarine]

"As in fencing, you're only supposed to attack certain parts of the body."

That is lazy writing on Stephenson's part. It is not true of épée fencing, for example. Incidentally the "duel" you refer to took place in the Metaverse, with Hiro ultimately hacking the code to drop a safe on his opponent's head as a finishing move, so it was at least as artificial as fencing, with as much connection to real sword-fighting as a round of Call Of Duty has to real warfare. Yes, I have read Snowcrash.

Ugh épée, proving that the small sword can actually be more pathetic and useless. Though it's not quite as disgusting as the bastard creation that is the fencing "saber". At least the small sword in it's original incarnation was about as lame as the épée or foil is presently and doesn't take the name of a proper combat weapon... not to mention ignore a good century plus of actual saber form.

Never understood dueling on a little strip either, completely nonsensical, may as well just glue your feet to the floor and not move at all.

Have some proper European fencing courtesy of the fine ladies and gentlemen of ARMA

I've done a little Rapier fencing in the Capoferro style, which is way back in the genealogy of modern sport fencing and about as far as I get from proper combat forms. The real root forms of sport fencing lay in the nobleman's "small sword", that is to say the actual style of sword the small sword. This useless insult to steel here.

It's clearly of use only to noblemen and other such useless creatures.

[Mr_Rose]

Ah, see, there's your mistake. Each socium has different laws on geekery. Where I am from, you are pretty much a geek if you use words like "isomorphic" and "disjoint" in everyday speech. Which I do.

What's so geeky about that? Ok. Doctor Who can make yelling "Of course, Fourier transform!" sound geeky.

"Fourier Bots! Transform and roll out!"

[TinPenguin]

Have some proper European fencing courtesy of the fine ladies and gentlemen of ARMA

The thing I really love about this is how very short each bout is. That's pretty much the most realistic aspect of it.

[Near Lurker]

The title is only making me think "snake, a snake, aah, it's a snake."

Which is making me think of the Brian May/Brian Blessed protest version, when the world finally stopped making sense even to me.

[Is it cold in here?]

Is there enough interesting for a martial arts thread?

Akima, Sam's sentence was jarring even to someone who learned English informally and has read (too) many used car ads that say "runs good".

[Method of Madness]

Is there enough interesting for a martial arts thread?

Create the thread and the interest will follow.