Posts by Silent Lion

@Link how does the lion king flow chart defeat LS's Shiva?

Dishwasher makes the sponge obsolete. Like your ipad to my news cutting. It doesn't have to be related to the purpose of the picture, only to the picture directly.

I've owned a pet.

Never have I ever been to Mexico or America :darkevil: Jokes.

Never have I ever owned an Apple phone

SL: 6

aLttP. Decided to give it a proper go, great game imo.

Well, yes. I think Henry VIII was in many ways a genius, but he was also a complete wanker. I grew up near Tintern Abbey, so a stark reminder was never far away.

Meditation

Despite the trappings of mysticism, meditation at its heart is nothing magical. There are, essentially, two goals/benefits/elements: therapy and training. The therapy part is the straightforward part that everyone knows: find a nice quiet room, maybe put some incense on, maybe some gentle music or ambient sfx if it helps, sit down in an upright position for ease of breathing, and relax. But that can only take you so far. Once you leave the serene environment, it's back to stress-land. Which is where the mental training part comes in. Instead of thinking of meditation as a magic trick to make you calm, it's better to think of it as practicing being calm.

A beginning exercise. Sit down, as mentioned, in whatever upright posture you can manage, and breath deeply and steadily. Give a moment for the initial mental fuzz to pass. Then, every time a thought enters your mind, dismiss it. It's harder than it sounds. You probably won't be able to stop thoughts entering your mind, but what you're aiming for is not to follow them - don't turn that thought into a train of thoughts. If you find it gets difficult, return your attention to your breathing. It's also a good idea to set an alarm for a few minutes, so you won't be distracted by thoughts of 'have I done it long enough yet'.

The biggest barrier to progress is leaning too far towards the therapy aspect, because it's enjoyable. But persist with a balanced approach, and the two will overlap more and more.

Never have I ever watched a 50s movie all the way through

SL points: 7

Read them all. Thanks for joining in, @Kaynil - loving the Roman history, but didn't want to engineer another duologue.
Also feel so dumb for only just noticing LinkSkywalker's and my acronyms are anagrammatic.

Also thinking of dropping the 'state which one you read' rule. It's shows poor faith on my part. Unless anyone disagrees, just go ahead and post your pieces.

The English Reformation

Henry VIII, King of England 1509-1547, began his reign as a devout Catholic. His devotion to the faith even earned him the title 'Defender Of The Faith' from the pope. But by 1534, he had broken with Rome and had turned England protestant. The high-school version of this turnaround is that Henry was besotted with the pretty and popular Anne Boleyn, but the old-fasioned pope wouldn't allow him to divorce his boring old catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon, and he wanted to be with Anne so much that he founded his own church (the Church of England) so that he could grant his own divorce.

The more accurate version is that Henry saw which way the wind was blowing. Since the German Reformation, protestantism was spreading throughout Europe and there was support for it in England growing under his feet. So, he had two choices - wait around until opposition to Catholicism posed a threat to his rule, or short-circuit the whole thing by founding a Protestant church and putting himself in charge of it. It's not the first time in history that's happened - Emperor Constantine comes to mind (arguably). Not to mention that the Catholic system in England was more powerful than Henry liked, which is why he got rid of it. And this whole Anne Boleyn thing: the Popes have annulled marriages plenty of times in history. So it had nothing to do with Catholicism and much more to do with the Sack of Rome (1527) by Spanish troops, which prevented Pope Clement VII from sorting this marriage thing out for him. So, in one fell swoop, everyone's favourite fat king had: restructured the political landscape, defeated the Catholic institutions in England that were arguably more powerful than him, made himself natural leader of religious dissenters, claimed a shit-load of land and money from the old monasteries, and yes, dumped boring old wife Catherine of Aragon for sexy Anne Boleyn. Checkmate.

I read LinkSkywalker's Gaius piece. Obviously lol

Basic Music Production - Two Concepts

Every sound/instrument needs its own "space" in order to remain distinct and clear. There is bass (low), mid and treble (high), then there is left pan, centre pan and right pan (which speaker it comes out of). This makes nine possible combinations. If you place two bassey instruments both on the left speaker, they will fuse together into one noise. Maybe that's what you want. But if you want your sounds to be clear and separate, you need to spread them out. A bass sound on the left speaker will remain separate from a treble instrument in the centre.

Also, high-pitched sounds attract and hold the attention, low-pitched sounds work better on the subconscious and the emotions. My piano teacher (when I could afford a teacher for like, one lesson) always said, when playing piano, it's like this: the left hand's the heart, the right heart's the mind. So, in a moment of emotion, you might want to start bringing in some bass. If you want to bring an instrument into the foreground, it might not be enough to simply make it louder - it's a good idea to up the treble a little to coax it out from the mix.

Simple, really - post a picture that defeats the last person's picture.
Example:
Person 1:

Person 2:

Person 3:

Make sense? Sweet! Let's get the battle ON!

英国外交部对香港铜锣湾书店五名股东、职工一事表达关注后，中国外交部警告外国无权干涉香港事务。

^ stupid is a self-fulfilling prophecy, not you.
< is wearing his "Look at me I'm all wise and clever" glasses. Takes them off.
V has real glasses?

I like the Daniel Craig Bond films. They make the old Bond films look like preschool entertainment.

This could be very, very boring. Or it could be really cool. Let's find out.

We all learn bits and pieces as we go through life, useless facts and things that clatter around in our heads waiting for a chance to be released. Share them here! It could be anything. Got some tips on lighting a fire? Know something about history? Want to tell us the best way to boil an egg?

Some rules:

Nothing too long, a couple of paragraphs is plenty.

Before you post, read someone else's piece and then tell us which one you read.

No telling anyone that their piece is dumb. That would be dumb.

If you really, really want to share something longer, post the first couple of paragraphs and say that there's more. Then if someone requests you to continue, go for it.

So, obviously, if you want someone to continue a piece they started, tag them and say so.

I'll get the ball rolling.

The Way of the Onion

Chopping onions can be a pain in the ass. A decent knife helps. Here's how I go about it. First, cut the stalk off (the elongated bit on the top, not the hard hairy bit on the bottom). Turn it upside down and stand it on the flat surface you just made. Cut it in half downwards, cutting through the tough hairy bit. Now take one of the halves, pull the skin off it, and stand it flat side down. Make vertical cuts running away from the hard bit, e.g. if the hard hairy bit is on the left, the cuts go from left to right. Don't cut the hard bit itself, start your cuts just shy of it. You should end up with parallel strips held together at the end. Now, holding the pieces together, cut sideways horizontally, not down - e.g. if the hard bit is still on the left, cut from right to left with the blade parallel to the cutting board. Finally, chop down at 90 degrees to your first cuts. You should end up with cubed onion. Each little cube will be made of layers, so you can use your fingers to separate it even more if you like. Treat the other half of the onion in the same way, or store it.

Before you throw away the stalk, hard end bit and skin, you can boil them up with a pinch of salt to make an onion stock. Chuck in some peels of carrots and things to upgrade it to a vegetable stock, but don't use potato skins, they do strange things to the broth.

Actually, I think the games weren't designed around it enough. Zelda did ok, with using the D-Pad for maps and other small-time functions. But I would have liked to see a game that used the awkwardness of three handles. Imagine this: You're riding Epona with the control stick and A-button. You can direct your sword blows with the c-buttons, but to aim and use your bow, you have to use the D-Pad, forcing you to change hand positions. It would be so much more realistic, that switching over feeling.

Low budget Chinese martial art films ftw! Fury in Shaolin Temple is hilarious. I guess because of Hollywood's reputation we expect American films to live up to something.

I think a live action Zelda would be pretty poor, and they know it. But if they did - given the feelings of the fanbase, they'd probably pick the 'classic' OoT. But I agree with @Kaynil, TP would be far easier from a plot point of view. Easier to establish (trying to establish the Kokiri thing and not leaving the forest would take far too long in OoT). But it would have to be one of those two, because Zelda is Zelda. WW, for example, wouldn't work, because Tetra is revealed as Zelda, and the significance of that isn't realised unless you've already played another Zelda game and have some idea of who Zelda is. In fact, a lot of that game's plot relies on knowledge of the Zelda series. MM would work if it wasn't so side-quest heavy. I think in general the game plots are two modular - each dungeon, and the story leading up to it, is very isolated from the rest of the game.

^ Lost her arrows
< RAWR!
V rawr ?