The Old Hack

If I meet a young child who is twice my size I am damn well running for all I am worth.

Stay away from Samsung at all costs. A company that makes both cell phones and laundry machines capable of spontaneously exploding is not to be trusted.

Not overloaded, technically. I am sure that in most armies that paid close attention to the standardisation of the soldiers' gear (which certainly includes the Roman Legions) they had worked out an optimal average load for their soldiers. Since the standard human design has not changed much in the past centuries, I am fairly certain that it has been a very similar number in the majority of the armies that put this amount of thought into things. I think the usual amount is 50 lbs. for gear and some left over to give the soldiers some extra carrying capacity at need. And as always, good soldiers will pass gear around to friends if some can't manage and others can manage a bit more. This is not saying that Roman legions couldn't carry extra weight at need. They carried stuff like palisade poles on their packs so they could erect a bloody fortified encampment every night of a march without having to rely on having to search for suitable trees on their chosen camping location. It's just that the really smart armies made sure that the load versus marching capacity was as close to optimal as possible.

It depends on the surfaces around. Any hard furniture with sharp edges will make a fall potentially much more dangerous. A wooden floor is less likely to cause serious injury than a stone floor; it has more give in it. A soft carpet can do wonders for dissipation of the involved kinetic energy. If you have a floor covered with tatami mats, you are almost sleeping in a dojo. You can still get hurt falling on it but you REALLY need to work at it.

Errr, anal retentive nitpick, that would be twice their height, right? She would outmass them by something like a factor of five to six, if we go with them being three feet tall and Kitty being five feet tall. Not that this in any way impinges on Cat's logic. In fact, it would only support it.

Some laws are like that. I was amazed by how comparatively lenient American laws on counterfeit money are in comparison to Danish laws. I learned this when I heard from a NJ news channel that someone had paid their bill at a Dairy Queen with a $200 bill. The bill prominently featured a picture of George W. Bush and the obverse featured a White House with two signs reading 'No More Scandals' and 'No More Taxes.' (This was back in 2002 or 2003, I think.) All these facts together meant that this did not rate as attempted counterfeiting because it was 'obvious' it was not legal tender. (To everybody except the poor sap behind the counter at the DQ, that is.) In Denmark it counts as counterfeiting if you make something that even vaguely LOOKS like something that could conceivably be legal tender. If the text on it reads 'Kroner', there is a number and it is roughly shaped like a paper money bill, you can get nailed HARD for producing it and risk from six to twelve years of prison. Even if it is a 1337-kroner bill with nekkid women on it. It is still attempted counterfeiting. I am not attempting to criticise either law. I am sure both governments had their reasons for formulating their respective laws the way they did. I am simply bemused by the variations and am morally certain that if you look at just a few more countries you will see even more extreme differences.

"Snow nearly as annoying as those bollocking Danes who grab our land, steal our uranium and engage in dick slapping contests with the Canadians over another of our islands." I have been given to believe that in actual Inuit the word is only two syllables long. I am impressed by how much information they can pack into that short a word.

You have my sympathies as well. Sometimes it is as life simply cannot get enough ordure dropped at you from a great height. If it is any help at all, our thoughts are with you and we will all be with you as you go through this. You are a poster I greatly value for your dry humour, your keen wit and your insights. You are an important reason that this forum is the place it is and so you may freely lean on us when you need to. Be well, old friend, and take care.

I'll take that. *signs* I'm taking it some 120 million years back in time and dropping it where it will be compressed by the movement of the Eurasian plate against the Indian plate. With luck this should give me a quite nice new diamond for the central unit of my Chron-O-John. I won't need all fifty tons for that, though. But no big deal, I am passing the Khufu Pyramid on the way. I'll just dump the dozen tons or so I don't need in one of the chambers in it, I'm sure nobody will mind. Oh, and while I remember. *grabs polonium* *activates PANTARDIS, disappears in a blinding flash*

All of it and then some.

No, but if you hum a few notes I'll fake it.

About the same. /me makes with a funny face at you, in case you care. Cut the Pharaoh some slack. Those are the only seas he knows how to cope with. He hasn't invented the keel, you see.

Let's not. Awwww

Ouch. I am really sorry to hear. Just remember that the top priority is getting better. Don't stress yourself by getting mad at yourself; you don't deserve that.

And a good thing too, the poor midjinks are getting really tired having to carry the story all alone.

Oh. Right. Well, let's assume Dwarf Fortress rules -- you can ride just about anything in that. One fortress was besieged by polar bears and they had a polar bear general who was so badass he rode into battle on another polar bear. Maybe the peasants just took turns acting as mounts for one another? Or actually... maybe this.

Danish peasants at the time had oxen and donkeys and mules. Maybe they rode into battle on those. Yeah, it would look comical, but how much would you laugh after getting your first faceful of fireballs?

They didn't, but since Papa Dunkel has always suspected that there was something a little odd about Tedd, it is practically the same thing.

That's because it is getting dizzy from all the turns you are putting it through. They would make Horus turn in his grave if he were dead.

Ugh. Take good care of yourself. And please keep us posted.

Sure there can. You just need a sizeable number. Maybe the horde that failed was a horde of peasants rebelling against their oppressive nobles. Hey, it could have been in Denmark. We had a peasant rebellion back in a time that fits with the timeframe.

somewhere in the sands of the desert a shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun is moving its slow thighs, while all about it reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again, but now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, is slouching towards Moperville to be born?

Move into outer space and we can talk about it.

You are quibbling. Mismanaging the light and energy we get from the Sun is mismanaging the Sun.

There's this litte thing called global warming. Don't believe any reputation Denmark may have for fighting it. Our government spent years denying it was a problem at all.