I had the urge to finally get a blog going on here, but alas had no real killer topic that was at the forefront of my mind.
I do quite like to hear about other people's lives, and I hope that I am a relatively known-enough poster that people would be a bit curious about the man behind the nickname so to speak.
Alternatively there may be no interest, and this initial foray into the terrifying world of blogging will sink without a trace.
On July 29 2013 14:23 GTPGlitch wrote: Do you ever wish you were a real bat?
Do you play mobas? If yes, and your team has a really good combo, do you insist on calling it a Womba combo?
What's the whether like where you live?
What's your favorite food?
How old is your oldest niece?
First 5 questions to come to mind :D
I don't particularly desire to be a bat, be it in the womb or not. My late father worked in the world-renowned BBC and for some reason all their computer passwords were antipodean animals, so I have held a vague affection for the Wombat since then.
I have an irrational dislike of MOBAs, because for some reason I'm terrible at them. I would however utilise your term if the situation arose. If I ever led a resistance movement and had to devise my own form of guerrilla warfare I would entitle it 'Wombat Combat' in the same vein.
The weather is pretty temperate in Northern Ireland, there's quite a bit of rain and the thermometer rarely hits the 20s in Celsius. That said it's been pretty damn hot (by our standards) and humid for weeks. Not my kind of weather, I genuinely quite like the cold, hate having sweaty balls and stuff like that.
I guess something mundane like pizza. I am not a big food lover all round, I generally try to eat as quickly as possible and utilise it merely for its energy release to fuel TL browsing.
I don't know, I think she's 18 now. Weirdly enough she apparently used to have a crush on me, a lot of her friends would creep me on Facebook and whatnot.
On July 29 2013 14:18 Wombat_NI wrote: I hope that I am a relatively known-enough poster that people would be a bit curious about the man behind the nickname so to speak.
On July 29 2013 14:57 wingpawn wrote: What's the state of Northern Ireland catholicism vs protestantism conflict from your point of view?
How people in Northern Ireland even identify themselves? English? Irish? 'The other' Irish or something?
Is it true that Ireland has so many open plains / swamps and very few forests?
Any good NI beer brands you could reccomend to foreigners?
Sorry if any of those questions seems ignorant to you...
Couching it as Catholicism vs Protestantism I guess isn't how I look at it. It's more an issue of national identity, though the two religions do feed into it. It's hard to tell, the circles I run in and the background I have it's close to a non-issue, but among the country as a whole it does still resonate as a big issue.
I'm not particularly well travelled within Ireland itself, but Ireland is quite flat and wet so I would imagine there are swamps. There are a few forests I've campred in and yeah, plains are a rather common feature of our landscape from my experience. It's a pretty green place if nothing else
I'm not sure sure on local beers. The only one I've really sampled, bar really local beers is Harp, which is a pretty standard mass-made lager. Certainly not bad, but nothing to write home about.
On July 29 2013 14:18 Wombat_NI wrote: I hope that I am a relatively known-enough poster that people would be a bit curious about the man behind the nickname so to speak.
Who are you?
also, do you even lift?
Wombat, my name is visible in the posts that I make. I feel hurt, we have exchanged posts on TL too!
I don't lift. I figure I am in pretty much as good shape as you can be in with doing no physical exercise and smoking though. I don't have any pics that really prove the magnificence of my latent physique though, bar my cheekbones
On July 29 2013 15:24 docvoc wrote: How do I become Irish like you :D.
Hm, you could potentially emigrate and obtain citizenship. Alternatively, you could look at your family tree, claim an Irish ancestry of between a 16th and a 64th and behave as if it is equivalent to being born and bred there. Plenty of your American brethren do this to great effect.
On July 29 2013 15:42 lichter wrote: Wombat vs Wallaby? Go.
Also, why do you think you are famous or notable on TL
A Wallaby would defeat a Wombat in the open field of battle with their superior musculature and stride length. However the Wombat has the ability to create relatively complex burrows underground, which I feel would swing that particular standoff in the favour of the Wombat, given sufficiently developed guerrilla warfare techniques.
It is more in hope than expectation. A combination of a nice snappy nick, some pretty consistent spam and being one of a rather endangered species as a Northern Irish poster on TL.
On July 29 2013 15:45 rebdomine wrote: Do you speak with an Irish accent?
Also what do you think of Luna's soundboard in DotA 2? Do you find her accent ridiculous?
What about Lone Druid's?
I apparently sound American, but I don't see that myself, you can make your own judgement on that
I am not a big MOBA fan, and it's a bit of a dodgy accent but there are traces of the Northern accent. She sounds like a pretty feisty lady from what I can tell
Lone druids I have no opinion on, other than solitude is not necessarily a bad thing
to me, you stand out as one of the bigger hero fans. what makes you a hero fan? it's always good to know why people are fans of their favourites. tell me your story of how you became a hero fan =]
Do you have hope for the future of the world, or do you think there's going to be a series of environmental and economic disasters that will plunge all of us into the dark ages?
On July 29 2013 20:29 opterown wrote: to me, you stand out as one of the bigger hero fans. what makes you a hero fan? it's always good to know why people are fans of their favourites. tell me your story of how you became a hero fan =]
@squishy, I am not a massive fan of potatoes but I do appreciate certain methods of preparation. Roast potatoes are pretty awesome, as are chips/fries . More of a pasta guy though
@Teddy, the Youtube clip posted a bit back is my actual face, featuring on a segment on BBC for a glorious 8 seconds or so. As to whether I look like a wombat I shall leave that up to your own personal interpretation from that.
On July 29 2013 20:29 opterown wrote: to me, you stand out as one of the bigger hero fans. what makes you a hero fan? it's always good to know why people are fans of their favourites. tell me your story of how you became a hero fan =]
Really the central point is I have always liked his playstyle. I recall his first real exposure in a foreign tournament at Dreamhack Valencia (link below) and really enjoyed his PvZ style since then. You know a Protoss plays well when Idra ggs you! I only really play Protoss as a consequence of playing them in Brood War, and enjoying the aesthetics of the race but have never particularly liked the way Protoss tends to function. HerO's style, especially in PvZ gave me some added impetus to not abandon the defenders of Aiur so I am grateful for that. I have a writeup of his strategic innovations somewhere on my hard-drive that I was going to submit for the TL writer's gig but kind of abandoned that due to other things going on in my life.
In addition, he wears his heart on his sleeve which endears me to him. I went to the Dreamhack Winter that was his first big win and that was an awesome experience, and met him a couple of times. As a fellow smoker I appreciated his dedication to nicotine, braving the frigid Swedish winter and all that.
Secondary to that, my fandom is really enhanced by following him for such a long time, being in the crowd for his first major win and stuff like that. When Andy Murray triumphed at Wimbledon it gave me that extra bit of pleasure because I have been watching him for so many years and seen him develop from a gawky teenager into one of the elite sportsmen in the world.
I also like that HerO lacks the stone-cold killer instinct, he can win big tournaments and games against anyone, but it's rarely nailed-on and expected for me. The pleasure of seeing him do well is that little bit more for me because of the emotional investment/lack of expectation. I appreciate Innovation's play, but I find him difficult to warm to in anything other than a pure respect of his sheer ability at the game.
On July 29 2013 22:44 radscorpion9 wrote: Do you have hope for the future of the world, or do you think there's going to be a series of environmental and economic disasters that will plunge all of us into the dark ages?
Em, yes and no. I think that the lack of activism/discontent of people over economic inequality and societal problems in much of the West will see much of the systemic problems remain unaddressed. It did rather use to depress me, but I have come round to the view that many people are happy enough as long as they have relative material comfort and their iPods and what have you.
When it comes to the environment, I tend to the view that when people can make money from environmentally friendly conduct over that which is detrimental, then they'll do it. As to whether this will occur before any kind of irreversible tipping point is reached is the thing that gives me concern.
I feel that the greater enfranchisement of people and ability to debate things over the internet has had a lot of upsides, but equally a lot of downsides. To me, the pre-internet era was characterised by a lot of deference to authority figures and experts in a variety of fields, some of it perhaps not merited. The internet era quickly eroded some of this, but continued on and on to the extent that people feel that their opinion has to be heard, regardless of any kind of actual knowledge or expertise on particular issues.
There's a kind of rank over-saturation of voices that expect their opinions to be treated with respect and given equivalency to those who actually know their shit that annoys me. That kind of mentality is fine when it comes to matters of moral intuition, but when it comes to other things it contributes to a real dragging down of discourse and information-sharing.
On July 30 2013 04:09 Djzapz wrote: Wombat, if by the time we're 50 we're both single, would you be willing to live the rest of your life with me?
I saw earlier in the thread that you're not a big MOBA fan, and I actively despise the genre. I think we could work things out.
How do you feel about 2% milk?
Edit: Photos of my face and genitals available on demand. Genitals not guaranteed to work past 50.
Perhaps, you do seem quite agreeable and my partner is driving me insane of late, so it's definitely possible. My son may find this arrangement strange, but he'll be 26 and hopefully living independently at that stage.
I don't really feel anything for MOBAs, I get more annoyed that the SC vs MOBA debate is so often entertained, when bar being played on computers there are very few similarities. From my experience The community is extremely unforgiving on new players, games last ages and as a spectator activity I just don't enjoy it at all. If it's your thing, it's your thing just don't expect me to support a game I don't give a fuck about.
I don't like 2% milk, or indeed low-fat products as a matter of principle, milk is the one I make an allowance for, but I'm not personally a big fan. For me, if you want to treat yourself, go do it and utilise restraint and moderation,but so many people just binge on low-fat products and get fat anyway. The tasty creaminess of full fat milk gives it an edge over skimmed and semi-skimmed varieties.
@HardyNever. Neither of those is me alas. Despite my name, I am a rather unhairy individual and could not hope to obtain such a lustrous coat. If I was Steve Irwin, I feel more would have been made of my resurrection from the dead.
Em as a player, I guess 'high' Diamond. I've genuinely gotten to a level of competence, and had to take massive breaks from the game when I get there, I don't think I've been able to keep my bonus pool below 300 since HoTS came out. Initially when I was at the brink of Masters patch 1.5 came out, which disabled the game from working on my Mac. I think I had to go 3/4 months without being able to play the game as I saved up for another PC. When I returned back, I got to my previous 'high', and switched to Terran for a while and got that to a similar level, suppose mid-Diamond. Since then, I've really not gotten to play the game much at all in the last 6 months, due to having a kid/working and stuff. My Starcraft PC isn't even where I am currently living, so I have very little chance to play.
I will be playing/streaming when I clear up that kind of stuff, I am relatively decent at the game and I think I can push on, but I have too many balls to juggle at present.
@GTPGlitch, I'm not sure what qualifies as cake. I'm more of a savoury/meat kind of guy, but I do love vanilla cheesecake. If that counts, I would probably make do with that. If that doesn't fall under the cake category, probably a chocolate chip cake that a local bakery does. No real icing, a nice spongy texture with liberal chocolate sprinklings throughout, so my kind of cake really.
@3FFA I woke up at about 7pm today, and my brain takes a few hours to boot up, I shall try to do better!
On July 30 2013 04:09 Djzapz wrote: Wombat, if by the time we're 50 we're both single, would you be willing to live the rest of your life with me?
I saw earlier in the thread that you're not a big MOBA fan, and I actively despise the genre. I think we could work things out.
How do you feel about 2% milk?
Edit: Photos of my face and genitals available on demand. Genitals not guaranteed to work past 50.
Perhaps, you do seem quite agreeable and my partner is driving me insane of late, so it's definitely possible. My son may find this arrangement strange, but he'll be 26 and hopefully living independently at that stage.
I don't really feel anything for MOBAs, I get more annoyed that the SC vs MOBA debate is so often entertained, when bar being played on computers there are very few similarities. From my experience The community is extremely unforgiving on new players, games last ages and as a spectator activity I just don't enjoy it at all. If it's your thing, it's your thing just don't expect me to support a game I don't give a fuck about.
I don't like 2% milk, or indeed low-fat products as a matter of principle, milk is the one I make an allowance for, but I'm not personally a big fan. For me, if you want to treat yourself, go do it and utilise restraint and moderation,but so many people just binge on low-fat products and get fat anyway. The tasty creaminess of full fat milk gives it an edge over skimmed and semi-skimmed varieties.
Well now I'm just hoping my thing with Olivia blows over. Cheers.
Wombat I have three questions, in your BBC appearance, you say that you view [something] as a transitional move toward proportional representation which you believe to be superior to single winner systems and whatnot.
1- What was the question asked by BBC? 2- Do you think that the BBC crew selected you because you're incredibly handsome, or was that just a really amazing fluke? 3- I do actually like the idea of a proportional system because it's a convenient way to increase the population's representation in parliament. However, many people dislike the idea of the system because proportionality means more parties get less seats, reducing the cohesion within the government, and thus reducing its effectiveness. This is due to the fact that more parties means more priorities and cooperation is more difficult. Also, proportional representation means that some extremist groups get seats in parliament. While this is a great show of freedom of speech and democracy, government is, in many ways, a "machine" which MUST be productive and not stagnate due to messy procedure. So my question is: In a largely materialistic world where our economic well-being seems to be more important than democracy, do you think it's practical to have proportional representation? Is it desirable in some way (principles, the emergence of new ideas, etc)?
1. It was just really a segment on the Alternative Vote referendum that failed pretty spectacularly and a general question on preferences of the public to that.
2. I'd like to think that, but I saw them outside our Student's Union and inquired as to what they were doing, and mentioned I was studying politics so that may have influenced them more! That said, I did speak for a good five minutes and they took the worst bit of my verbal wanderings!
3. I think it works well, but is rather society-dependent. It seems to works well in countries where there is a political tradition of coalition, of political cooperation and is not necessarily transferable to all polities. My preference for it is that it will include more voices into the process, and by their presence the two main parties over here will have to diverge more ideologically/politically.
I wouldn't say I'm idealistic or naive, but I tend more towards wanting things out of principle, unless they are incredibly unpractical. In the case of PR, it's simply to get a more genuinely representative Parliament.
On July 29 2013 22:44 radscorpion9 wrote: Do you have hope for the future of the world, or do you think there's going to be a series of environmental and economic disasters that will plunge all of us into the dark ages?
Em, yes and no. I think that the lack of activism/discontent of people over economic inequality and societal problems in much of the West will see much of the systemic problems remain unaddressed. It did rather use to depress me, but I have come round to the view that many people are happy enough as long as they have relative material comfort and their iPods and what have you.
When it comes to the environment, I tend to the view that when people can make money from environmentally friendly conduct over that which is detrimental, then they'll do it. As to whether this will occur before any kind of irreversible tipping point is reached is the thing that gives me concern.
I feel that the greater enfranchisement of people and ability to debate things over the internet has had a lot of upsides, but equally a lot of downsides. To me, the pre-internet era was characterised by a lot of deference to authority figures and experts in a variety of fields, some of it perhaps not merited. The internet era quickly eroded some of this, but continued on and on to the extent that people feel that their opinion has to be heard, regardless of any kind of actual knowledge or expertise on particular issues.
There's a kind of rank over-saturation of voices that expect their opinions to be treated with respect and given equivalency to those who actually know their shit that annoys me. That kind of mentality is fine when it comes to matters of moral intuition, but when it comes to other things it contributes to a real dragging down of discourse and information-sharing.
I'm almost certain we're going to go over the tipping point...but geoengineering plans give me some hope. Whether its spraying aluminum oxide into the upper atmosphere or removing carbon dioxide through iron fertilization of the oceans, I think there are potential solutions on the horizon that could save us although they are risky. Apparently some countries are already trying them on a local scale, like China.
I also agree about economic inequality. It seems like people are rich *enough*, or happy enough, that they aren't quite ready to riot. Occupy didn't really seem like a rally that was focused on inequality; it was just something they chose to focus on a few weeks into the protests which initially had no clear goal. I think if people were truly in dire straits we would have seen a much stronger, and clearer response than what we saw in Occupy.
Also the over-saturation of non-experts is probably frustrating to all of us . But I think its just a phase, and we will inevitably pass through all the wiser. In theory, this will allow us to disseminate expertise in a much clearer way (crowds over time will find the most efficient means of delivering a message), which should raise the level of debate once we all share the same baseline of knowledge. Also people who are wrong will inevitably be proven wrong before they cause too much trouble, there are too many intelligent people around for them to get away with it.
On July 30 2013 15:30 Wombat_NI wrote: 1. It was just really a segment on the Alternative Vote referendum that failed pretty spectacularly and a general question on preferences of the public to that.
2. I'd like to think that, but I saw them outside our Student's Union and inquired as to what they were doing, and mentioned I was studying politics so that may have influenced them more! That said, I did speak for a good five minutes and they took the worst bit of my verbal wanderings!
3. I think it works well, but is rather society-dependent. It seems to works well in countries where there is a political tradition of coalition, of political cooperation and is not necessarily transferable to all polities. My preference for it is that it will include more voices into the process, and by their presence the two main parties over here will have to diverge more ideologically/politically.
I wouldn't say I'm idealistic or naive, but I tend more towards wanting things out of principle, unless they are incredibly unpractical. In the case of PR, it's simply to get a more genuinely representative Parliament.
That is very true actually. You say that PR is society dependent - do you think that the UK would be able to function with it?
For what it's worth, I didn't mean to imply that you were idealistic or naive. I would like to see PR in Canada and Quebec, but right now, even with 3 or 4 serious parties each, they're unable to get shit done. I can't imagine what it would be like with 12 parties in parliament, especially if they kept doing that whole party discipline bullshit.
Also I'm sorry that they took a bad soundbyte, at least they took a soundbyte. And it's not actually that bad, you're rather articulate. When I was like 14, I was at a paintball field and some TV crew did interviews and they talked to me. When it aired, they actually just used footage of my stupid face talking while the show host was talking over it with his scripted stuff.
I'm genuinely not too sure. I think it would be an interesting experiment anyway, and it would certainly force certain parties to up their game.
I mean the UK is more diverse in terms of political affiliations and beliefs than it appears. Under first-past-the-post Labour and the Conservatives can coast more than they should be able to. Labour relies heavily on Scotland and Wales, the Conservatives on 'Middle-England', and that could potentially be shaken up.
I'm relatively articulate, although I was in my 20s in that video, not 14. I am quite babyfaced but not quite that bad!
Apologies for the lateness, as Mr Djapz so accurately informed the thread I was away taking my son on a tour and seeing family and stuff. Was almost blissful without the internet!
On August 09 2013 05:55 QuanticHawk wrote: How old are you? Have you traveled much? Do you have irish cooking recipes to share with me? Have you successfully pigeonholed me yet?!?!
23. Em, I've traveled quite a bit in terms of countries visited, but often not for too long at a time. The only place I've really spent repeated, long visits to is Finland so I feel in that case I got more of a sense of how the place is outside of the idealised view you can get on holidays etc.
I can barely cook, so I have very very few potential useful recipes to share.
I've tried to pigeonhole you and somewhat failed. I now realise you are not even the Hawk I initially thought you were, so I gave up my quest to flesh out my profile. It may be resumed if I can get the time to do some better TL stalking.
On August 09 2013 13:39 freeshooter wrote: Why do men get morning wood?
Are you a wizard?
How do you hold conversation with people?
What's your best pick up line?
These two sages have done a better job than I could ever hope to.
I'm not a wizard, although I have dabbled in the arcane arts.
Conversations, hm? I suppose I tend to avoid making eye contact, talk crap and/or pursue my own little esoteric jokes and anecdotes.
'Are you a poultry farmer? Well you sure can raise a cock'. I'm not much of a 'pickup' kind of guy, I tend to attract girls that I vaguely know via friends etc who mistake my borderline social awkwardness and strange sense of humour for intentional aloofness and mysteriousness. I don't really tend to correct folks on this fundamental misjudgement, if we're not compatible it'll become apparent pretty quickly anyway.