Jeru

You're welcome, Argalius. Internet forumming improved my English vocabulary and writing skills too (even though I'm a native speaker). Here's for many more English-language discussions with you!

This thread is right up my alley... I was just about to start a thread about electric guitars. Thanks, Lorian, Klaas and everybody else who participated! I learned a lot. I've been wanting to play a musical instrument since my early childhood, but I never really got around to nagging my parents very seriously about it. I've always had a musical talent, but so far it's really only manifested itself by singing at a school choir in 3rd grade and being able to remember entire songs in my head. My brother and I were contemplating whether to buy a classical acoustic guitar, an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. Our main concerns are the learning curve, the sound quality, the kind of music that can be played, the portability and whether the volume can be lowered (so as to minimize the disturbance to other people in the house while practising, namely my mom, who would have a fit). - Classical: My brother got a dirt cheap one when he was in college and he said he got sick of it very soon. Nylon strings mean the sound leaves a lot to be desired, and we read an article that recommends classical guitars only for those interested in playing classical music. So that is pretty much out the window, at least for now. - Acoustic vs. Electric: A while ago I was actually considering buying a good acoustic guitar. I like the acoustic sound, and there are a few good acoustic songs I'd like to play. The main advantage of an acoustic guitar is that you don't need to use an amplifier for it, so it's more portable and I could take it to social engatherings, the army base I'll serve at or whatever. While the electric guitar is less portable, the main pluses are the (allegedly) lower learning curve and the option to connect headphones to the amplifier. Plus, I pretty much grew up on electric guitar music (U2, Metallica, The Eagles and more)... While Metallica Unplugged is one of my favorite albums, I'd really love to be able to play along with some of my favorite songs. What does The Edge from U2 use? Joe Walsh from The Eagles (or whoever the lead guitarist in "Hotel California" is)?

I'm 17, going on 18. I'm getting drafted to the IDF sometime in late 2005.

This Bob character sounds scary. Wouldn't want to meet him.

Spanish is not a hard language; I picked it up easily. It's just quite different from what you're familiar with, which would be the Scandinavian languages and English. I can't offer specific tips for Spanish that wouldn't apply to any other language. Come with an open-minded approach; Each language has its own unique, beautiful inner logic. Practice as much as you can and read to expand your vocabulary. Spanish has some very irregular verbs that can be a pain in the neck, but I was fortunate enough to have a Spanish teacher to practice them with, so I got over most of those. Last but not least, "My mother lives in Norway" would be rendered "Mi madre vive en Noruega".

The accumulative damage from smoking is such an effective deterrent I never intend to start. A few Biology classes were more than enough for me to realize that my body is going to deterriorate due to free radicals anyway, so there's no reason in the world I would give that process an extra shot in the arm by inhaling free radicals on a daily basis. Argalius, to stop doing something "cold turkey" means to quit it completely from one point onwards.

This calls for a big round of applause all around. Great work, everybody.

If my input is appreciated, why has nobody from the forum development team given a reply to this thread? Would it have been better to post the thread in a more frequented forum where it doesn't belong to get a reply? (Re Sukkit's "tiny things about the forums" thread in the Staff Lounge)

I usually use the "View new posts" button to browse the forums. I'm particularly interested in recent developments in the 0 A.D. forums, with WFG community chit-chat threads and TLA developments lagging far behind. I am not interested at all in reading staff members' progress reports on a regular basis. Unfortunately, with the recent incorporation of the progress reports into the forums, I have had to browse through lots of progress reports I don't care to see on the "New posts" list. The problem has worsened now with the forum merger, and I cannot find any forum function that can help me browse the way I was used to. It would be really nice if there were some usage profiles at my disposal - Especially "View new 0 A.D. posts" - Or if there was a list of options where I could filter out what I don't want to see on the new posts list (like a "progress reports" box I could uncheck"). Thanks for your time and attention.

Maybe it's healthy for rep to be reset occasionally. Keep up the good work, everybody working on the forum swap/merger.

Bienvenido! Glad to hear you're so enthusiastic about joining the team. Building an RTS as complex as 0AD is no easy task and there's definitely plenty of work to go around. Maybe you should PM Jason or Stu (known on these forums respectively as Wijitmaker and Acumen) and you could look for the areas where you could best contribute. I added you to my MSN contact list. I hope I can practice my Spanish with you! 0AD's engine is written in C++, written/compiled on VC++ 6 and later versions. The scripts are all in Javascript. (Here's hoping none of this was confidential)

In Latin languages, including French, to express age you use the equivalent verb to "to have". Instead of saying: "She is six years old" or "She is six", you say, "She has six years." In Hebrew I'd say "אני בן שבע-עשרה שנים" (Transliterated: ani ben shva`-`esreh shanim), which translates literally as "I am the son of seventeen years" or "I am attributed to seventeen years".

Ah, then it's exactly the same as in Spanish. Le français, que langue jolie!

Answer: That blogging etc. does not get work done is not necessarily bad. Work is not the only value in life.

Imagine your audience in their underwear, convince yourself they're all absolutely dying to hear what you have to say, and just talk like you would to a friend of yours. Relax, what's the worst thing that could happen?

I speak four languages but unfortunately French is not one of them. I'd love to learn it someday, though.

My Bio project is about alellopathy in Eichornia crassipes, and it's about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Today I observed the Yom Kippur fast, not insomuch for religious reasons but for tradition's sake. I came to the synagogue both today and yesterday for the same reason, plus for the anthropological experience.

What year is it in Melville, Yiuel?

Thank you, Uppy, but in Israel we use both the Jewish calendar and the calendar most of the rest of the world, including the USA, uses (called the Gregorian calendar). So there's no need for the heads-up

Hilarious! Thanks!

We only have fireworks on Israeli Independence Day (Iyar 15th, usually the end of April or the beginning of May).

!שנה טובה You need the Hebrew ISO-Logical character encoding to see this greeting correctly. In my own transliteration, this is rendered "Šanáh Ťōváh" - Most other people would simply render it something like "Shana Tova". It's pronounced |shah-NAH toh-VAH|, and please try to keep the vowels as pure as possible, as in Spanish. It literally means "good year". But enough about the greeting; I thought I should tell you a little bit about the meaning of the holiday, Roš Hašanáh (Rosh Hashanah). This holiday marks the beginning of the Hebrew year, which is based on a lunisolar calendar and uses a leap month (for more about the Hebrew calendar, see Wikipedia: Hebrew Calendar). It is the beginning of the Jewish holiday season, which includes 10 days of repentence, concluding in Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. This holiday is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet made from a ram's horn. During the afternoon of the first day occurs the practice of tashlikh, the symbolic casting away of sins by throwing either stones or bread crumbs into the waters. Rosh Hashanah meals often include: - Apples and honey, to symbolize a sweet new year - Pomegranates, to symbolize a year full of success as the pomegranate is full of seeds - Carrots (gezer), to symbolize a year free of draconian measures (gzeirot) - A fish's head, to symbolize fertility and success. Happy new year!

We have a new literature teacher who needs to prepare us for a literature matriculation exam, which will take place in January. I'm lending my Literature teacher my notebook from last year, as well as some exams, so she could see what my class has already learned.

to burgle - to break into to steal - to unrightly take another person's property as one's own to smuggle - to transmit goods illegally to abuse - to harm to murder - to kill intentionally to rape - to force sexual intercourse upon to blackmail - to force another person to do something by threatening them to carry out something against their interests (e.g. publicizing something from the victim's private life) to kidnap - to take a person where they are unlikely to be found to beat - to use physical force with one's hands or with blunt objects to harm. (Or: to defeat) to rob - to unrightly take another person's possession(s) as one's own to embezzle - to appropriate (as property entrusted to one's care) fraudulently to one's own use (Merriam-Webster) abduction - kidnapping vanadalism - intentionally causing damage to an inanimate object, e.g. by spraying grafitti arson - intentional starting of fire to destroy property manslaughter - unintentional killing physical assault - attacking another's body drunk driving - controlling a moving vehicle while intoxicated extortion - blackmail, typically done to obtain money bank fraud - lying to financial institutions for profit forgery of documents - fabricating documents, making a document look as if it were genuine when it isn't. to mug sb. - to rob someone, esp. of the valuables the victim carries on their body while in a public place