Over the last month or so reddit became convinced that Black Box was one of the most overpowered weapons in the game, on the same tier as LnL and BFB. Their problem with the Box was that mainly centered around the fact that you could gain a decent amount of health if the enemy team is super clustered together. In a pub environment where people don't know how to aim (and so can't kill the solly before he has the chance to reload) and clump together like morons, apparently that's a huge issue.

As happy as I am to see gay marriage allowed in more states, I'm concerned because the obvious next step for the Gay Illuminati is to now step out of the shadows and declare themselves the rulers of a unified world government.

(but seriously, so many of my FB friends proposed or were proposed to yesterday my entire feed seems like a constant stream of proposal pics it's p cool)

I don't run as much as I used to but when I did, I was able to run 20 miles a day, 3 days a week. One morning I woke up at 3, couldn't get back to sleep, and decided to go out running. I wanted to do a half marathon, but that day I ended up running 22 miles and realized I could probably just start training for a marathon. I never did an official marathon so my numbers are going to be iffy, but my best time was just north of 3 hours, meaning I could theoretically qualify for the Boston Marathon. My average times were a decent amount higher though. I also was the Game Show Network's Northern California Vocabulary Champion back in high school, which got me a nice scholarship and attracts women like flies to honey.

FO4 looks cool and all but the game I'm really excited for is the next Mirror's Edge. The original is probably one of my 5 favorite games of the last decade. I was a little concerned when I heard they were overhauling the combat, because I liked the fact that the combat was bad. It encouraged players to figure out ways to avoid it (and, with one, maybe two, glaring exceptions, it was always possible to avoid a fight). I'm a little disappointed they removed guns entirely, I liked the fact that they were an option, but a bad option. The fact that you had a choice to use guns, but that it was usually a poor one really seemed to fit with Faith's character design. I'm not too bummed though, it's far better than putting emphasis on guns. I'm excited to see how the open world design pans out. The original ME levels were tight and satisfying, I'm hoping that DICE has been working on this for the last 6 years and will be able to create an open world that can create such a beautiful feeling of momentum and flow as the original linear pieces. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Columbia Heights. I used to live in SW until I moved because it was sketch and I didn't feel comfortable having my gf move in with me there. It's usually pretty fine up here but every once in a while it gets messy.

Here's the issue. All religions' holy books have various passages and interpretations that can be completely at odds with each other. The Quaran has very specific rules about how to "morally" engage in warfare (a precursor to the Geneva Convention), and ISIS quite blatantly violates every single one of those rules. Would that be grounds for saying ISIS is unIslamic? Up until the late 1980s, people were convinced that Catholic nations were authoritarian. It was a convincing argument, like 90% of majority Catholic nations were ruled by dictators and it's pretty easy to find quotes and traditions from Catholicism that would seem to support authoritarian rulers. But now of course we realize that the reason Latin America was undemocratic had very little to do with religion.

Same thing with Protestantism. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was a groundbreaking book by Max Weber, possibly the most important work in the history of sociology. Its core theory was that Protestant teachings were uniquely capitalist in a way that no other religion was or could be. It was an airtight argument, bringing in teachings from Luther and Calvin and applying them to the development of capitalism in West Europe, and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately for Weber, the 20th Century largely disproved his theory.

What I'm trying to get at is that saying "Islam made him do it" is a useless statement. Islam encompasses 3/4 of the Earth and something like 10 billion people over the course of 1,300 years. What would be a better idea is taking a look at what ideals, traditions, and teachings he valued within Islam, which ones he ignored, then honestly trying to figure out why some were seen as important and others were left by the wayside. Which schools of thought he adhered to, how they arose, what they were influenced by, what they responded to, and how they developed. You'll get actionable information out of the latter analysis, if you honestly believe "Islam" as a whole is an issue (or any religion as a whole is an issue) then you start to rely on the argument that "the only thing they understand is force." And that hasn't worked out.

One of my good friends in college was the youngest of three brothers. The middle brother was a med student in Southern California before he dropped out and decided he wanted to join Hamas. He flew to Pakistan because that's allegedly where his hookup was, and when he got there presumably he realized that Hamas isn't based in Pakistan and also doesn't actually want foreigners joining. He tried to come back to America but he was put on a no-fly list and had to stay in Southeast Asia for a year or so. Eventually he got back to America, was placed under house arrest, and is currently waiting trial I think.
The oldest of the brothers is a successful American diplomat, and the youngest brother (my friend) is either going to join the military or follow his oldest brother into the US Foreign Service.

This isn't some sort of isolated incident either, there's been a number of cases where Americans from thoroughly secular backgrounds and good education decide to hop on a plane to join some sort of foreign group. It's tricky to deal with them after they return. On the one hand, I'm completely sympathetic to "lock em up and throw away the key" approach, particularly in light of the video BBC got its hands on and the other innumerable atrocities. On the other hand, it looks really, really good for the US (and UK, this happens there too) when those fuckers decide to come back because they realized that ISIS is fucking insane. If you can successfully reintegrate those individuals into society, you're not going to find a better spokesperson to prevent people from trying that shit in the future. Plus if they throw the book at someone who decides to come back, it might dissuade someone from returning to the US if they already left to join ISIS but began having second thoughts. It's a tricky path to navigate and I'll watch these proceedings with interest.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like he actually joined right? He just went to Turkey and came back before he met up with anyone?

DC.
Finally found some people talking about it on twitter so I know I'm not going crazy. Shooter possibly contained, one person down according to twitter. I guess they chased him into the alley behind my apartment. Which is fucking crazy because I have a window overlooking the alley.

Was just woken up to the sound of 7 gunshots (probably less than half a block away) and people yelling outside. Then there were a shitton of police sirens and some megaphones telling people to stay off the streets. Couldn't really hear what they were saying so I could be wrong but there were definitely gunshots. Haven't found anything on the news about it but there was a shooting in this neighborhood earlier in the month so idk.

Not really sure what people would want to ask about but I had a few people encourage me to do an AMA and there's not a whole lot else to do while chilling in my bathtub. An AMA is admittedly a bizarre thing to do but my apartment's empty right now and I would like to talk to people.

I actually loved music theory classes and hated the more hands on ones. But I've always been better at music theory than actually playing music so there's that.

I played classical guitar for 12 years, alongside the piano, Irish tin whistle, and harmonica. I've dabbled with a few other instruments (bodhran, bass, any string instruments I could get my hands on). Also took some voice lessons in college. Was really bad. Used to play in a jam band, we had the tin whistle, an accordion, and a banjo. We got every musician joke known to man (outside of the drummer jokes). Haven't played anything since I moved back East, I've been wanting to pick up a banjo and learn because it's my favorite instrument and I don't think it would be difficult to learn at this point, but haven't gotten around to it.

If you can't tell I mostly like playing country, folk, bluegrass, and the occasional blues.

From the Wired article, he sounds like half the people I met at parties in SF. It's crazy how short the distance was between normal dude in his 20s to criminal mastermind ordering executions. Shit's whack.

I've been on a nonfiction kick recently so I've been reading a lot about history. Currently working through Vanished Kingdoms, it's about European nations that have since disappeared and I've been loving it. I never knew that Lithuania used to be the largest kingdom in Europe and while I knew that Poland hasn't always been this rundown, I hadn't realized that it used to be one of Europe's greatest superpowers.

I'm also reading a biography on Sam Houston and a history of the Mongol Invasions.

Over the summer I'll also likely hit The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (probably my favorite modern author) and In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Zizek because Zizek is the funniest author I've ever read in my life. Maybe some Harold Bloom because I have a fetish for crotchety, overweight, elderly Jewish men.

Subs are perfectly okay, just so long as they have league experience.

So I can keep tracking of the tournament, please send me a message after your game with the results, including the rounds for and again.

Below I'm listing the team leader so y'all know who to contact for each of your matches. Good luck, have fun!

Team Aphex: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cwierrrrrz
Team Digital Monsters: http://steamcommunity.com/id/awwee/
Lego Island 2: http://steamcommunity.com/id/atleastidontwatchanime/
#BringBackRobinWillaims2015: http://steamcommunity.com/id/thebilldozer_/
thai guys: http://steamcommunity.com/id/figsyy/
TERRY'S CREW VOLUME 2: http://steamcommunity.com/id/cerrytrews/
Skeps Baby: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Naciwise/