Twilight Dirac

Now if Uplay stops being a total pain, I might get it...

That is what I say about every Ubisoft game. 

I'd go around shutting down all of the thrice cursed spam servers and spam bots and make the internet a better place.

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  A series about a wizard who works as a Chicago detective having to solve an assortment of supernatural crimes and fight off supernatural beast.  It is made up of pure awesome.

(Wow where did all o the LoL players go...? Maybe ADC mains cowering in fear of champions like Zed, Kha'Zix and Ziggs...?)

I switched to Heroes of the Storm and never looked back. 

As others have said, it depends on the game.  The first time I encountered them was in System Shock 2, where they were used extremely effectively.  Having NPCs drop by to deliver exposition would have interfered with the oppressive atmosphere of the game, while scattering audio logs around the environment were a rather organic way to place backstory in an exploration focused game while simultaneously providing the player with valuable information about the game itself, including pass codes, enemy weaknesses and the locations of valuable equipment.

The problem is game developers starting using it on precedent alone.  They arguable also worked for Bioshock because it was again a character exploring a creepy claustrophobic environment although they seemed to provide less useful gameplay information in Bioshock.  But by the time Bioshock Infinite came around they made no sense as there were plenty of NPCs to give this information and there was no reason for these things to be strewn about a still populated environment.  At this point the game devs were just including them out of habit.

Civilization in general is a really good series.  My all time favorite is probably Civilization V, its got a really good tight design with some interesting combat.

As anyone here tried multiplayer matches of Civilization V?  I keep on trying to get a large brony game of Civ V going but I always have difficulty organizing one.

A lot of FTP games are terrible because of there grind centric payment models, but there are definitely some good ones:

Heroes of the Storm:  This is Blizzard's take on the MOBA.  Its like LoL or DOTA but with much of the early game grind removed along with a dozen or so maps plus some really interesting heroes.  Probably the best FTP out there.  It would be worth your time to check out.

March of War:  Unfortunately this game went belly up, but for a while it was a turn based tactics game with a Red Alert meets Warhammer 40k style Dieselpunk atmosphere.  It is a shame it failed.

Mechwarrior Online:  Think World of Tanks, but with Mechs.  I prefer the actual game mechanics over that of World of Tanks, but they game is far, far too stingy with the in game currency, meaning you have to grind like crazy for anything or you have to spend a lot of real money on upgrades.

PlanetSide 2:  Basically persistent world Battlefield.  You actually get to fly the aircraft in this one as everyone gets there own personal vehicle allotment.  No people with superfast computers hoarding the helo before your game even loads and no getting shot by your own team for trying to fly an airplane.  Overall a much better environment for this kind of game.

Honorable Mentions (by virtue of technically not being free):

Guild Wars 2:  This is a MMORPG with no subscription fee, but you do have to buy the base game.  Its arguably superior to most MMORPG with subscription fees, so it is not a bad investment.

Overwatch:  It is basically an upgrade to TF2, but it will put you back $40.  If you liked TF2 back in the day, you will probably enjoy its spiritual successor.

No, really, how do they work. Once saw someone joke about this, then went into pointing out that not even Quantum Mechanics can articulate how magnets work clearly.

It depends on which kind of magnet you are talking about.

Electromagnets are fairly straight forward in terms of theory.  The Biot-Savart law flat out states that an electric current will generate a magnetic field proportional to the length and strength of the current and inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the electric current, much the same way as a charge generates and electric field.  A magnetic field will then produce a force on any other currents in the vicinity, including the electric currents of other electromagnets.  The underlying math is such that coiling a wire will produce a magnetic field along the axis of the coil along within the interior of the coil.

Its once you get into ferromagnetism and permanent magnets that quantum mechanics come into play.  Charged particles generate magnetic fields both from their intrinsic spin and their angular momentum, the later which include electrons in p, d and f orbitals.  This will give some atoms a net magnetic moment.  If these magnetic moments can be aligned then they will generate a net magnetic field.  In ferromagnetic materials like iron these moments will align to an external field and the ferromagnet will then be attracted to the source of the magnetic field.  In permanent magnets quantum mechanical exchange energy results in the magnetic moments of the atoms being pre-aligned so that the material always generates a magnetic field.  Such a material then behaves much like a coiled electromagnet.

Well I have never unsubscribed from a Youtube channel because I have never subscribed to one in the first place.  I don't want to be bothered by random crap.  But an honorably mentioned goes to The Spoony Experiment.  This was my favorite channels for years, and then Spoony just stopped producing content.  Don't know why, he never mentioned he was retiring he just rarely post new material.

Why physics of course !

Then there are all of the specializations:  Electromagnetism, optics, special relativity, quantum mechanics and nuclear physics.

Looks like we have four people interested in playing.  Any chance we could actually get a game together?  Looks like two of us are in the U.S., one is in Poland and one is in Australia, so we might get screwed by time zone differences.

I have been wanting to get into that game, its basically Left4Dead meets Warhammer but my friends have never gotten around to purchase it.  I might be willing to give it a try.

Baseball - This "American pastime" is a dreadfully boring sport, both to play and to watch.

Ranch Dressing - This stuff is vile, but restaurants will cut a simple vinaigrette dressing from their menus before they cut this.

Cheese - I am lactose intolerant.  Milk is easy enough to stay away from.  But restaurants will put cheese on absolutely bloody everything.

Always online DRM.  I am looking at you Uplay!

Add me to the list of people who think Larry the Cable Guy is terrible, he certainly doesn't seem particularly popular on this thread.  Same goes for Dane Cook.  I am surprised nobody has mentioned Adam Sandler yet, or his partner in crime Kevin James.

I will stick up for Will Ferrell though.  I honestly don't think the problem is his acting, I think the problem is the crap that movie makers keep putting him in.  Look at a movie like Elf, do you honestly think using an actor other than Will Ferrell would be able to salvage that kind of mess?

If Pokemon were real organizations like PETA would flip their shit.  And I would expect it wouldn't go well at all with society as a whole.  Just imagine the headlines:

The new wave of animal cruelty:  Children force animals to fight for their own entertainment.

The cruel cramped confinement of pokeballs.

Children skip school looking to capture untamed animals.

Dangerous creatures:  What you don't know could hurt your children.

Needless to say, it would probably end very badly.

I believe that Saturday night... is alright... for fighting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSA_RLCriHs

Yes, it is most definitely misanthropy.

I donated and got a tax receipt for my donation but there are no other indications on this site that my donation was received.  Is there any why to check to make sure you guys got my donation.

Thanks.

Why Druids of course

Who doesn't want to play a shape-changing, animal summoning, lightning-throwing mad priest who commands the very elements themselves.  Other class favorites include wizards, D'Va and Pharah from Overwatch, and whatever the heck Abathur from Heroes of the Storm is supposed to be

Abathur:  making Heroes of the Storm the best MOBA since 2015 !

In D&D I abuse monk class, because of how ridiculously OP it is when compared to other classes who don't try multiclassing thing. Armor bonus caused by wisdom + dexterity, monk only items that additionally boost his defense and damage, 3 strikes per round with no penalty to hit on certain level, ability to knock enemy down, kill him in one strike or cure himself out of the blue, immunity to lots of negative effects... it is just ridiculous. 

Actually Monks are generally considered under powered, especially in D&D 3.5.  Of course this is from somebody who enjoys playing druids in D&D, so your mileage may vary.

Sand is a cheap and abundant material used in the fabrication of glass which includes the fiber optics used to carry internet data, so what is not to like?

Tell George Lucas to stop hating on sand.

If I ever found somebody who I could maintain a long term relationship with I would like to get married and start a family.  But as of yet I have never maintained a relationship anywhere close to that long.

How about fire ants

They may be small but they are one of the nastiest species of insect around.  Back when I lived in Florida I poisoned fire ant nest on sight.

No, no and heck no.  I had to spend 13 years with those people and I regretted almost every minute of it.  Why would I go out of my way to see them again?  Primary school is a point in my life a will never look back at with nostalgia or even anything close to it.

Because puns are unbearable.