[iamzack]

i've been sitting in a dark basement doing math (and by doing i do not mean 'reading about') for almost 9 hours straight, with one short bathroom break

my hand hurts

[LordMelvin]

My back still hurts, my pants are still a bit damp.

anywaaaaay...

I've spent most of the evening trying to figure out who would win in a fight, Heinlein's Mobile Infantry (from Starship Troopers the book) or Dickson's Dorsai (from Dorsai!)

[Thaeris]

My back still hurts, my pants are still a bit damp.

anywaaaaay...

I've spent most of the evening trying to figure out who would win in a fight, Heinlein's Mobile Infantry (from Starship Troopers the book) or Dickson's Dorsai (from Dorsai!)

What about raging, angry Fremen from Dune?

 

[Turambar]

SPARTANS (ancient greek, HALO, or mixed unit)

[LordMelvin]

SPARTANS (ancient greek, HALO, or mixed unit)

I guess it all comes down to equipment, if you're going that far... so lets say it's a pseudo-triathlon - run a marathon, swim a reasonably long distance, and then win a knife fight. You can bring your own knife (no more than 20cm blade, will be checked for poison), clothing not to exceed (or be less than... oh, god, my eyes...) reasonably sized shorts, and sandals.

Spartans(greek): bonus for being used to working at this tech level, penalty for being less "futurekind-evolutionized" than the far future types+-
Spartans(halo): penalty for not having their armor, penalty for not having their guns.--
Fremen: Bonus for being badass, bonus for being born knife fighters, penalty for water-freaking-out-ness-ness(isthataword?)++-
Dorsai: Bonus for being badass, bonus for being hyperspecialized soldiers ++
Mobile Infantry: Penalty for not having their jump-jetting minimechs with nuclear RPG launchers, bonus for being trained by that dude Zim to be badass anyway +-

so, halo loses because I tweaked the rules against them (Rules? What rules?) the MI and GreekSpartans wind up taking each other out in the semifinals, leaving the Fremen and Dorsai. Unfortunately, Stilgar slips on the wet ground near the water, giving juuuuuust enough of an opening for Graeme to win the day.

Damn. I should have made it something that didnt' involve swimming. Oh, well. Duncan Idaho will totally take him out in the rematch...

[Scotty]

Spartans (Halo) also have the cybernetic augmentations and 25 years of combat experience.

[SpardaSon21]

Yeah, and Heinlein's M.I. are trained to be lethal with anything from their bare hands to loops of wire.  Plus the training is so brutal only about 1-in-10 makes it all the way.  In the book it says 2,009 men were in Rico's training company, and only 187 graduated to be full M.I., with 14 fatalities during training, one executed for high crimes, and the rest dropping out.

[General Battuta]

The SPARTAN training (or Spartan training for that matter) is definitely tougher than Heinlein's MI.

Compared to the former two the MI is piss-easy.

[Thaeris]

Damn. I should have made it something that didnt' involve swimming. Oh, well. Duncan Idaho will totally take him out in the rematch...

You know, after six novels, Duncan Idaho got pretty old. Miles Teg would kick his ass. 

[NGTM-1R]

Compared to the former two the MI is piss-easy.

One could argue that any training program which is actually lethal to the majority of those who undertake it is fundementally broken.

After all, the problem both forms of Spartan faced in the end was that there weren't enough of them. This cannot really be said of the M.I., though I suspect any program to produce basic infantry that washes out so many is probably also broken.

[General Battuta]

Oh, I wouldn't disagree.

[esarai]

After having left this thread alone for approximately 150 pages worth of whatever the crap it is that goes on in here, it is time for an update.

College applications have paid off, and the decisions are coming through.  I applied to University of Colorado, Grinnell, Oberlin, Vassar, Williams, Stanford, Harvard, Amherst and Reed. 

So far I have heard from eight schools, and have been accepted to Reed, Amherst, Grinnell, Oberlin, Vassar and CU. I have been rejected from Stanford and Williams.  How this happened I have no clue.  My SAT II's are all 700 or above, and I scored a cumulative 34 on the ACT.  Perhaps it was grades... but whatev.  I don't really care.  I made it into Reed and Amherst, and they were higher up on my list than Stanford and Williams.

All I need now is Harvard's decision, and the process will be complete.  I should hear by Thursday.

Wish me luck!

[Nuclear1]

Bad Nuke, bad title changing Nuke. 

[Bob-san]

My back still hurts, my pants are still a bit damp.

anywaaaaay...

I've spent most of the evening trying to figure out who would win in a fight, Heinlein's Mobile Infantry (from Starship Troopers the book) or Dickson's Dorsai (from Dorsai!)

Rain in New England. And considering I don't have rubber boots that come up to my knees, not that it would have helped much. We got over 3" of rain yesterday. When I went to class at 11:30, it was particularly bad and I had to walk about 6 blocks to the academic building.

[Colonol Dekker]

I would.
If you can't make the grade, perform at the required level then you don't deserve the title.
 
 
Simple.
 
 
 
Ps spartans are augmented fakes. MI are all natural.

[Klaustrophobia]

After having left this thread alone for approximately 150 pages worth of whatever the crap it is that goes on in here, it is time for an update.

College applications have paid off, and the decisions are coming through.  I applied to University of Colorado, Grinnell, Oberlin, Vassar, Williams, Stanford, Harvard, Amherst and Reed. 

So far I have heard from eight schools, and have been accepted to Reed, Amherst, Grinnell, Oberlin, Vassar and CU. I have been rejected from Stanford and Williams.  How this happened I have no clue.  My SAT II's are all 700 or above, and I scored a cumulative 34 on the ACT.  Perhaps it was grades... but whatev.  I don't really care.  I made it into Reed and Amherst, and they were higher up on my list than Stanford and Williams.

All I need now is Harvard's decision, and the process will be complete.  I should hear by Thursday.

Wish me luck!

exam scores are only a VERY small part of what goes into admissions.

one of the professors in my department is all pissed at our senior design group now, because the lab we have to use has been dirty and disordered for the past 5 years due to grad student use.  i'm rather pissed that we are taking the heat for it.  and before anyone suggests it, this is NOT a guy you correct or make anything that could possibly be construed as an excuse to. 

[Colonol Dekker]

You worked in a dirty lab? I can't stand messy mess. Even I didn't make it I still maintain efficient workspace.

[Gortef]

Well feck.. the insides work just fine but my previous dual boot installation (XP+Win7) fcuked up the bootmgr... it wont boot into Win unless there is a bootable disk inside the optical drive (no bootmgrs or boot folders in C: drive).
Gnnnghhhhgh... I guess I need to erase all the bootthingies and try to repair the System Boot from the Win install disk and bootrec.

[Klaustrophobia]

You worked in a dirty lab? I can't stand messy mess. Even I didn't make it I still maintain efficient workspace.

i use the term "lab" loosely.  it's really the old reactor bay where they've kluged together some high voltage supplies, vacuum systems, and called it a plasma lab.  it much more resembles a machine shop.

[Snail]

I got killed too many times playing MW2, so I decided to do some stress relief by killing as many civilians as possible in 'No Russian'.


Then studying.