Lurker > Polycosm

Let's suppose it's true, for a second... I still don't see the connection between infidelity and Feminism.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Would you really want to go live in China though? I wouldn't.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

This is kind of morally gray for me, but I think I side with the ACLU on this one. 1A and 2A must both be defended, but when you combine crowds, hate speech, and guns all in the same place at the same time... it's difficult for me to call that a peaceable assembly.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Verdekal posted...

How do the best ones compare to Stanford and Caltech?

There have been years where Berkeley has tied Stanford in national rankings (for whatever those are worth), but most often it falls below both Stanford and Caltech.

Some of Berkeley's STEM curriculum is pretty much identical to the other two schools. Berkeley's Computer Science curriculum is a carbon copy of Stanford's. Berkeley's Physics department uses the same books as Caltech and MIT. I would say that the student bodies of Stanford and Caltech are better-prepared for college and a bit more capable though. Berkeley attracts some bright students but many of them would have chosen Stanford had they been accepted / if they could afford it.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Verdekal posted...

Polycosm posted...

In terms of academics... Berkeley, then UCLA, then it's debatable.

What about Irvine?

I'd rank Irvine #3, personally. But I think it's pretty debatable between Davis, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

In terms of academics... Berkeley, then UCLA, then it's debatable.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

This topic just made me realize how much I've forgotten when it comes to programming. Like, I'm struggling to understand your code, and I was a CS major. Damn.

Anyway... I'm no help here. Good luck!
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Unemployment statistics aren't bullshit; they measure exactly what they purport to measure. The problem lies with politicians who draw dubious conclusions based on the numbers, and the statistically illiterate general public who believe them.

The unemployment rate is an important measure of the fundamental health of the economy, but of course no one statistic can tell the whole story. The labor force participation rate is declining faster than it should based on wide, generational population numbers. This is indicative of a deeper, chronic sickness in the US economy, which the unemployment rate isn't designed to capture.

Both stats have their uses.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Wait, what happened? Trump fired the President?
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

If your celestial body is blocked, I'd recommend Metamucil. You'll be shitting down again in no time.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I finally finished my first run through the game. It was positively delightful. The flaws are few and far between, and I can count them on one hand.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Mania has a very small dev team. The sales numbers don't have to be huge in order to justify the budget.

And there have been some notable success stories lately, with retro revivals.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I don't have any faith in Sega, tbh. But I suspect that Sonic Mania is going to sell very well, and I fully trust this dev team to deliver more top-tier 2D Sonic games... if Sega lets them.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Washington made many positive contributions to the American ethos as we know it today. As long as there is something about him worth honoring, I see no reason why his name and likeness should be relegated to a museum.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I'm afraid to admit this, but... I prefer the visuals of the reboot. It's clean and comic book-like, and the coloring is really appealing, imo.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

The original Sonic CD special stages were not so great, imo. They basically devolved into a jump-fest where you ignore the mess of tiles on the ground. Sonic Mania fixes the concept and the special stages function like actual racetracks now.

Also, the level design is really solid so far (about halfway through). The Metal Sonic boss fight had some irritating moments, but otherwise the boss design is top-notch.

The most striking thing about the game is how cleverly the older Sonic mechanics are repurposed and woven together with new, original gimmicks. It's a brilliant tribute to Genesis ( + SegaCD) era Sonic. Sonic Mania is worthy of its pedigree.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

There's nothing pathetic or shameful about asking for help. Depression is a biochemical state of being. You can try to manage your response, but you can't just think your way out of it. Get the help you need.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I'm gonna devour this game once I get home from my work trip.

The ONE reservation I have is with the level design. I hear that the dev is a huge fan of Sonic CD, which imo has atrocious level design. I'm hoping that the design philosophy sticks closer to S3&K than Sonic CD...
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Sativa_Rose posted...

Robert E. Lee

Precisely one of the exceptions I was thinking of, btw.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I don't think that every historical figure with a controversial past needs to have his statue removed from public land. The founding fathers were all complicated and flawed men, who contributed great ideas to the moral fabric of our country... and who also committed crimes against humanity. I don't believe that monuments to Thomas Jefferson ought to be relegated to museums. Jefferson, for all his flaws, still represents certain positive aspects of the American ethos.

However, most of the Confederate statues really don't have any place outside of a museum, imho. Outside of maybe a couple of exceptions, there isn't any redeeming symbolism to be found in them.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

He peered from behind the clearance rack, his heart palpitating and palms sweating. ssj3vegeta_ slowly reached his hand down to his cargo shorts and... wiped it against his upper-right pocket. A residue of Dorito dust smeared across the soiled, sour fabric. Through his pocket, he could feel the hard edge of a cell phone which had laid there dormant for years.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Donald J. Trump tweeted...

Who are @WhiteSupremacists to pretend innocence when they “racial profile” all over the place? Paid big fine!

Oh wait, my bad. He actually said this about Macy's:
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/616353457889505280
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I'm barely able to tolerate these protests to begin with; it's only by my absolute commitment to Free Speech that I can defend the rights of Nazis to assemble in public.

But these acts of violence are both disgusting and totally predictable. Where's the militarized police force that always seems to show up to BLM gatherings? This shit is out of control and we need to see some people put away for life (e.g. the man who committed vehicular manslaughter).
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

The Google memo is deeply flawed but one of its key arguments was still right on the money: there's a social movement comprised of people who worship "diversity" like a religion and who believe that all individuals are literally equal (not equal under the law, but rather born with equal potential). Instead of having a rational conversation with the author of the memo, Google purged him from the company for daring to challenge their dogma, in a move that largely proves one of the author's points: Google's corporate culture is an echo chamber.

I understand why some of the topics in the memo are considered to be social taboo-- there's a dark history of this kind of science being used to justify racism and eugenics-- but until society is ready to have an adult conversation about biology and genetics, we're doomed to chase after arbitrary diversity quotas which have no basis in science.

Case in point: the "$0.77 on the dollar" statistic. When people insist that this statistic represents unequal pay for equal work, the real causes of male/female inequality go unnamed and the root of the problem is ignored.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Sonic 1 special stages are pretty unwieldy and it feels like you're constantly battling unintuitive momentum and hidden gravitational tipping points. Still, you can sorta make your way through them carefully without it devolving into total trial and error. Just don't go barrelling down a blind corridor.

Sonic 2 features the most trial and error. The last few special stages have blind turns where you don't know whether there are going to be rings or mines on the left or the right.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles special stages are perfect. There's zero trial and error, the time limit is removed in favor of an acceleration/speed mechanic, and there's the bonus objective of collecting all the rings (which adds a ton of depth and turns the stages into puzzles, where you have to think about the correct order in which to collect the blue spheres).

S3&K special stages also add an element of exploration to the main stages, with the way that the entrances are placed.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Dragons have been extinct for a few hundred years and their skulls were on display in the Red Keep throne room until Robert moved them to the room underneath.

White Walkers haven't been seen in over a thousand years and there are no remaining fossils.

The characters who inhabit the world of GoT aren't aware that they live in a fantasy world where all rules are potentially out the window. It's perfectly reasonable that dragons would seem real to them while White Walkers are a fairy tale.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

NintendoFanGirl posted...

Polycosm posted...

I'm happy to have graduated from the dating scene. I'd never presume to tell someone what he/she should or should not find attractive, but it's a simple matter of fact that if you refuse to date down yet overestimate your own value, you're probably gonna have a hard time pairing up with anyone.

I think you don't understand the meaning of 'date down'

If you've got a 6' rule but loosen it a few inches, that's literally "dating down," is it not?

No but actually, here's the connotation, explained:

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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

I'm happy to have graduated from the dating scene. I'd never presume to tell someone what he/she should or should not find attractive, but it's a simple matter of fact that if you refuse to date down yet overestimate your own value, you're probably gonna have a hard time pairing up with anyone.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Two-thirds of Americans are financially illiterate, partially because they're also mathematically illiterate.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

ThePredominate posted...

Please TC, post pictures, if you wouldn't mind.

100+ posts and then an extremely polite request for pictures? CE has gone soft. Should have been pics nao in the first ten posts. wtf, guys?
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

sfgiants posted...

They're just getting rid of the remedial classes. They still require that admitted students take 3 years of math in high school (so all admitted students must have already taken Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II). Obviously, California's extensive CC system can take care of remedial math classes for students who need them.

As far as everyone complaining about taking non-STEM classes when they were in college, you had a choice of which college to attend when you applied for schools. Not all colleges require taking "liberal" classes, and many colleges give you a choice of which GE class to take. You can also choose the professor, too, which should be the most important factor in the decision of which classes you take.

This post said pretty much everything I wanted to say. Colleges are up-front about their graduation requirements; it's not like it's some surprise they spring on you after you get there. If you don't want a liberal education (emphasis on the lowercase "L") then simply don't apply to colleges with extensive general ed requirements.

As for math education,
Tmaster148 posted...

Statistics is a math that should be more widely taught in high school. Basic statistics would do a lot to help people getting fouled by articles citing stats to fit their agenda.

^This is where the general US population is most notably deficient.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Gall-Peters makes no sense for K-12 schools. Winkel and Mercator both convey a much more accurate sense of direction, distance and area. Admittedly, Gall-Peters is superior for actually measuring those three qualities, but they ain't teaching cartography in K-12.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

BLM is a righteous mantra but a mess of an organization. Hopefully the core, founding message will find a way to outlive the irredeemable, hollow shell of a movement which currently hosts it.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

s0nicfan posted...

Sure. My point was it's a bit naive to claim that nobody is pushing for Orwellian speech laws when in fact there are numerous groups actively pursuing that exact thing. Canada may have been the first to codify it as law, and the US constitution may offer more protections in general, but we can look at things like Title IX as examples of ways people have found ways around those protections to force others to act.

There's even bits of it you can see in the US supreme court already starting to bleed into law:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/02/24/supreme_court_reprimands_groups_for_misgendering_gavin_grimm.html

And on Friday, a spokeswoman for the court informed me that the clerk, Scott S. Harris, had sent out letters reprimanding the groups that misgendered Grimm and demanding that they comply with the rules moving forward. You can read the letters here and here.

Okay, fair enough. I definitely didn't mean to imply that nobody is pushing for speech laws; rather, out of all of the transgender rights related media I've been exposed to (admittedly a small sample), legitimate attacks on free speech have made up an exceedingly small percentage.

You've pointed out several examples I was previously unaware of, though. So I must concede that there are more cases of this than I thought. I don't think it negates my answer to the original question posed ITT, but perhaps my answer should be updated to include a larger asterisk.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

s0nicfan posted...

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/canadian-lawmakers-pass-bill-extending-transgender-protections-n773421

Certainly there is some nuance to consider when discussing "transgender human rights." It's a large umbrella and I don't agree with 100% of the advocacy done under that banner.

Fortunately, US hate speech laws should prevent government-sponsored speech codes (like the one you cited) from being adopted in the US. While I support the civil, voluntary use of preferred gender pronouns, etc, I'd strongly oppose anyone who wants to codify it into law.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Also, let's clear something up about 2A: the text is literally about guns, but really it's derivative of a right to self-defense. (Not to open up the debate about whether 2A was poorly written or a necessary compromise considering its historical context...)

2A isn't about the right of some inanimate object to exist... it's still a fundamentally human right, by proxy.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

s0nicfan posted...

You can't compel speech. Period.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that the government cannot compel speech.

At the same time, I don't believe that most transgender advocacy is concerned with pushing speech codes backed by the threat of force, although there is a coordinated effort to change our cultural/linguistic norms, and that's totally fair game as long as it's not compulsory in public spaces. The big issues in the news lately have more to do with participation in sports, bathrooms, and military service.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

The Declaration of Independence asserts an unalienable right to the "pursuit of happiness," which I believe is the category under which most transgender human rights issues should be classified.

The Declaration of Independence also represents the moral foundation upon which the US Constitution rests. The 2nd Amendment is one of the highest-ranking negative liberties enumerated in our founding documents, but it still doesn't outrank the positive rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence, ethically speaking.

Of course, legally speaking, 2A has firmer standing than transgender human rights at the moment.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Transcendentia posted...

i worked at SpaceX before. it was not like that. those are just character assassination attempts.

Consider my Bayesian probability proportionately updated, in that case.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Definitely not a human right. However, perfect information leads to more-efficient markets. And in markets where perfect competition doesn't naturally arise (commonly due to economies of scale, among other forces), government-regulated internet service provision can help close the information gap.

Big telecom companies are also given privileged access to public rights-of-way to build their network infrastructure. The public, through government representation, has a right to place certain demands upon these companies so long as their equipment occupies public land.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Transcendentia posted...

Polycosm posted...

My only issue with Musk is the way he burns through his employees. Can't argue with the results though-- he's getting shit done. History is going to remember him for his accomplishments.

Uh no one is forced to work at Tesla or SpaceX.

That doesn't mean that the company culture should be needlessly toxic, as several accounts would suggest. I think it's fair to criticize that.

I'll amend my statement though... "the way he allegedly burns through employees." I've never rigorously verified-- just read so many independent accounts that it's starting to look like a legit body of evidence.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Which of Trump's policies is responsible for continuing this 7-year trend, iyo?
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

My only issue with Musk is the way he burns through his employees. Can't argue with the results though-- he's getting shit done. History is going to remember him for his accomplishments.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Kuckles literally mansplaining Feminism.

edit: did I just use 4 out CE's 5 most-hated words in one sentence?
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

Yosemite or central coast. Or both in same day. Lake Arrowhead ain't bad either.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

"snowflake" has replaced my previous #1, "pretentious."

(The speaker typically demonstrates that he's guilty of his own accusation in the very same sentence he declares it).
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

NOM posted...

Hey, can someone spoil me on one thing? Not full blown details, just a yes or no...

Do we see Ned Stark ever again? Like, in a flashback or as a force ghost or something like that?

Yes, and......it's in the form of......a "flashback..." sorta...

Also, a couple of existing characters might really grow on you over the course of seasons 3 and 4 (I know they did for me).
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

RIP man comma
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

vashmoto posted...

Polycosm posted...

So what happened?

Went back a bit to see what I had missed. Looks like WV governor will be changing from dem to republican. Besides that, seemed like a typical Trump campaign rally.

Bleh...

(thank you for doing the dirty work though)
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)

It's a shameful part of our country's history, and a common theme across all of human history. It can't be undone, nor should it be forgotten.
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BKSheikah owned me so thoroughly in the 2017 guru contest, I'd swear he used the Lens of Truth to pick his bracket. (thengamer.com/guru)