Toadfish Monastery

Hello,

I just tried to attach a rather small (60KB) image to a post but got informed that the upload folder is full.
Could some admin please check what this is about.

Thanks

Maybe someone with more IT experience than me can tell me.

I occasionally find 'mail delivery failed' notifications in my email inbox indicating that someone sent out spam under my email address that gets either rejected or was directed at invalid addresses. I have changed my password a few times (after checking the system for malware) but the problem returns. Is this an indication that someone has hacked my email account or is it more likely that someone simply puts a false sender address on his spam without any need to access my email account at all?
My passwords should be beyond guessing or thesaurus attacks (16 characters gibberish) and I do not enter them via physical keyboard but using the onscreen graphical keyboard tool.

Does anyone here know a reliable, safe website to check other websites for malware spreading (or suspicion thereof)?
The problem is, there are many sites claiming to do that service but how do I know that they are not just a front to spread malware themselves?
Whom can I trust to tell me which sites are safe to visit?
Of course I could call the NSA but they would then make use of my saucy surfing habits to blackmail me.

So much about our information age. I stumbled only by chance over the sad news that

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ

has died already on June 7th without me noticing.

Looks like he was the last of the old Horror guard to go.

Of course it would be wrong to reduce him to his work in horror flicks or, worse, just the role of Dracula.

He did so much more and was one of those guys that could show real screen PRESENCE even when not doing much (and he was sadly often just a bit player in films that had his role in the title).

He was related to Ian Fleming (James Bond) and at least one Bond villain was modelled after him (but someones took the role, he got the chance only later with The Man with the Golden Gun).

He knew both Tolkien and Mervyn Peake (Gormenghast).

He met one of Raputin's assassins (as a kid)

He died so often in movies that his daughter used to greet him coming home with "How did you die today, daddy?"

He achieved with his role as Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) the same as Ben Kingsley with Gandhi, he was mistaken by inhabitants of the subcontinent for the real person come back to life (and as with Kingsley his photographs get occasionally mistaken and used for the real person too). He considered it his most important role ever.

By all accounts he was a very likable man with little in common with the bad guys he so notoriously had to play.

This is aimed in particular at the non-English speaking part sof our community but not limited to it.

Languages contain words that seem inherently funny or strange. They may express an idiom and are thus not immediately understood by 'outsiders' even, if they know the individual parts. They may also conserve an obsolete meaning or an element no longer in common use (legal terms are often this).

Come up with examples (including an explanation)!

I will start with some

Himmelfahrtskommando
suicide mission
lit: ascension command, going-to-heaven mission
It seems to be assumed that this kind of job leads upwards. The equivalent Höllenfahrt (journey to hell) exists but only means that the trip itself is hellish not that the participant ends up dead.

Ehrabschneidung, Ehrabschneider, ehrabschneiderisch (aka Verunglimpfung, verunglimpfend)
calumny, calumniator, slanderous/libelous
lit: honour-off-cutting/er
This is a legal term rarely used in common language, while verunglimpft (slandered) still is. The latter contains the root word Glimpf combined with 2 prefixes (a rarity). The only other context where Glimpf occurs is glimpflich (getting off lightly). Glimpf seems to be obsolete for several centuries already and once seems to have been a word for a position of authority.

Hexenschuß (icelandic: þursabit)
lumbago
lit: witch shot (Icelandic: bite by a giant)
Obviously it was assumed that this painful phenomenon was the work of an evil entity, either a witch shooting an arrow (or something similar) at you or a þurs* sneaking up at you and taking a bite.

*today the meaning has been reduced to 'giant', originally it meant most malevolent (supernatural) forces independent of size. Draugr made a similar shift from zombie to ghost (Scandinavians did not believe in immaterial monsters, they had to have a solid body).

On Ascension weekend I took a trip to Sweden with the shipping and naval history society I am member of. Our destination was Karlskrona, once the main naval base, founded by king Carl XI because he needed an icefree harbour. Before that the Dutch and German navies roamed the Baltic freely in the spring while the Swedish fleet was still frozen in Stockholm.

We arrived late at night at the hostel.


The dining room at the Hostel at Drottnigsgatan 39. Modest but pleasant (unless you are allergic to IKEA design  )

Next morning we went to the Naval Museum for a guided tour. The museum houses parts of the old ship model collection of the Swedish navy and since recently has been expanded to include the Uboat hall where both the oldest and one quite modern Swedish submarine are on display.





One of the more exotic exhibits: The Vapenpalm, a tree made out of pistols, bayonets etc. (about 150 years old, not a modern creation)


Next on the list: a guided tour of the old navy dockyard in the (still active) war harbour. The area had strict limits on photography, so you won't see many ships despite the harbour being full of them.


The bell tower on the way down to the harbour.



This building once housed the ship model collection and is now the seat of the base commander.


In this shack the figureheads for the Swedish navy were carved. It has been returned to active use.


The old ropewalk. The building is 300 m long and was in use for about as many years (up to the 1960ies). It has now been reactivated.

Here is the building as seen from the seaside



The Vasa shack, the first indoors building slip of its kind. Large enough to construct the standard 74 guns men-o-war of the sailing ship era. Today it is used for smaller vessels.

You've probably at least heard of Selma Lagerlöf's book about Nils Holgersson's journey with the wild geese.


One episode takes place in Karlskrona. Nils strolls through the town at night and reaches the main square where he comes face to face with this guy:


His majesty king Carl XI of Sweden, founder of Karlskrona

He soon regrets his disrespectful remarks about the king's ugly face because the statue climbs down from its pedestal and comes after him. Nils has to run until he encounter this old wooden sailor named Rosenbom who hides him under his hat


The king then recruits Rosenbom to search the town for Nils. They also visit the model chamber seen above during the operation.

The next day was reserved for a trip to the outer defenses of Karlskrona, a ring of forts placed on small islands. The largest on King's Island is still used by the navy.


A nice statue on the fish market honouring the women selling fish there through the centuries. The ferry to the outer islands starts from here.


The main fort in full view. This is the 'old' side facing the town. The outer 'new' side facing the Baltic Sea is dominated by bunkers, armored cupolas etc.

One of the more interesting features is the inner harbour of the fort.

As you can see, it would be unwise to sail in there with hostile intentions. All those holes in the wall would have had either a cannon or a rifleman behind it.

A more surprising sight given the nature of the installation:

The fort houses a botanical garden. Swedish naval ships going abroad were expected to bring home exotic plants, espcially trees, and this is were those that could withstand the winter ended up.

On Sunday it was time to go home. We had so much spare time (on our outward leg we almost missed the ferry due to traffic jams on the way, so we were extra careful now) that we could make a small detour to Malmö. We were looking for a reconstructed Hansa cog but could not find it (we leater learned that it was visiting Stockholm at the time) and tok a tour of the shipping and technology museum instead.


They too have a Uboat in the backyard.


I think those are enough images for now. Karlskrona is quite a pleasant town with lots of old architecture. The weather was perfect the whole time too.
But, if you are thinking about going there too, expect a lot of climbing. The roads are very steep, so it is useful to plan your route accordingly. But everything is in walking distance too, so no need to drive around or to wait for buses.

I (and quite a number of others, if the comments are representative) are quite pissed.
Until last friday there was a podcast for the Rachel Maddow show available at MSNBC, i.e. the whole hour in one handy file.
The other political programs (Hayes, O´Donnell, UP! etc.) were available clip-wise but complete too. A strain on the bandwidth though.
Since yesterday the podcast is reduced to a 'highlight' and the MSNBC page has selected clips (covering about 1/2 to 2/3) and the 'available' full show is access-restricted.
The whole thing gets announced (at the end of clips) as if it was a huge improvement.
Reading the comments especially American expatriates are pretty miffed (from which I conclude that the access restriction does not just require an account but also US residency. Can't check that).

What angers me personally is not just that I do not get what I want anymore (as a non-paying parasite) but that the whole thing looks like a scheme. If they would just say 'no pay => zero access' or 'residents only'*, I'd not be happy but at least see the justification. Even a teaser policy (free intro but nothing more) would be reasonable. But this 50% video (pure audio is still 100% but of limited use since Rachel loves her props) is simply an insult, especially when announced in a 'good news everyone' manner.

Quite some people also smell a plot as a part of MSNBC's new policy of 'getting away from Liberal TV'. Ruin the ratings by shenanigans then use that as a justification to cancel. Why not go all the way and replace Rachel, Chris and Lawrence with another 3 hour show by an ex-GOP congresscritter (the evening equivalent of Morning Joe [Scarborough])? They already tried (and miserably failed) to outfox FOX during Dubya's Excellent Gulf Adventure and went 'liberal' only afterwards. Time for a new attempt?** There will be soon either a new Clinton POTUS to bash or a GOP/TPer to brown-nose, and one needs to prepare for that.

*the BBC does that, so it's not just an American thing. On the other hand a number of good BBC programs are only available in Germany on DVD (although often only dubbed and cut from 55 to 45 minutes per episode) not in the UK (which is silly).
**fat chance of success. Just look what happened/s to Bill O'Reilly with his decades of serial lying coming out. If even that does no damage to FOX's 'credibility' with its audience, then a weak copy will not lure it away.

Since yesterday evening youtube seems to have gone into snail mode with data transfer rates going down to 5-15 Kb/s while my line usually has one of 250 (and still has for other websites). Am I the only one facing that problem at the moment or ius there a specific youtube problem affecting everyone?

As some correctly observed, the protocols are primarily to make executions LOOK clean and the 'problem' is when that fails. mayn simply don't care whether the execution is pure extended agony for the executed as long as it does not show (therefore the paralyzing agent). There are numerous quick and essentially foolproof methods to put someone to death but without exception those are very messy (dropping the 15 ton weight, high explosives in an enclosed space or even the old-fashioned guillotine). It's about us not looking like obvious sadist barbarians. The honest ones are actually (and regrettably) those that openly say 'make it as messy and as painful as possible', although the given reason may not be as honest (personal sadism often hiding behind the arguments of deterrence and 'just retribution').
I openly admit that torturing certain persons (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo and the like) to death methodically and slowly has quite an emotional appeal but I would not want to create an actual legal precedent there.

Reading the daily papers I found a short notice: Serbia plans to erect a monument in honour of Gavrilo Princip right on time for the 100 year jubilee of the act that triggered WW1. His footprints in brass on location were bad and tasteless enough when it was done decades ago but this seems a new low.

Again the yahoos that control the interface/design/functions of youtube have struck.
At the moment I cannot post any comments because the system claims I am not logged in (despite showing my avatar and username). Trying to log in at the comment box itself gives me options I have not authorized the guys to give me (like plain name and email address) or the one I am already using. Clicking just brings me back to the original page keeping me still officially not logged for comments (and by now even thrown out completely with no way of getting in again without the same go-back-to-start reaction).
Plus they removed the option to display comments as threads which was originally default and later at least optional. So, it is impossible to see who responded to whom and who posted independently.
And for the last time KEEP THAT GODDDDDDAAAMMMNED GOOGLE+ OFF MY YOUTUBE!!!!!!!!. I AM NOT INTERESTED!!!!!! And don't ask me every other day why I use the username I use and not the other and what the exact reason is to use different names on google+ (I DON'T USE GOOGLE+!!!!!) and on youtube and whether I am really sure about that and why I do not manage everything under my plain name and address from my  GOOGLE+ account (I DO NOT WANT YOUR GODDDDAAAMMMNEDDD GOOGLE+!!!!!!)?

It has been a constant prediction for many a year that any day God will finally lose His temper and patience about the godless ways of the US (tolerating gays and teaching evolution at school) and send signs of His wrath down on the worst perpetrators. In other words, a meteor strike on Boston is just around the corner, if we follow the warnings of famous US TV evangelists. Now the day has come and the meteor struck. But to everyone's surprise it did not land on Massachusetts or Southern Californi(c)a but in the Ural mountains (for our US minors: that's in Russia, the former Soviet Union). You might think the Evil Empire would be a natural target for divine retribution but why so shortly after the Russian parliament passed strong new laws (strongly supported by the church) against the gay agenda? Woud that not be exactly the wrong message? Or do we have to assume that His aim is that bad or that He set his timer wrong, so the hit came hours and thus thousands of miles off the intended target?

I assume His self-appointed spokespersons are not available for comment yet.

There are often complaints about low resolution images where one can count the dots without a magnifying glass.
Now the printers show what they can do on a good day:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/100000-dpi-image/

On alternet.org the comment threads on almost all religious topics tend to devolve into a debate between those that see Jesus as the Christ and Saviour and those that deny that Jesus ever existed as a historical person.
By now I tend to put a more or less standard comment there:

The problem is that we know of several (minimum 7) rabbis by the name of Jesus active at the time in Palestine. The 'real' one could have been any or none of those. Jesus/Joshua was and is a very common Jewish name and so is Joseph. So the uqestion is less "was there a rabbi Jesus?" but "which rabbi Jesus?". The question whether the biblical one had much in common with a flesh and blood one is secondary. I assume that at the time Mormonism was founded there were several other Joseph Smiths in the US that dabbled in religion (as preachers/ministers/etc.) given that a) the US are a big country with lots of people (more than Roman time Palestine) and b) both Joseph as a given name and Smith as a family name are extremloy common and c) the US went through a number of religious awakenings boosting the number of dabblers in religion beyond the normal level of other countries. It would therefore imo be highly unlikely, if there was no other Joseph Smith 'doing' religion.
Many consider Mormonism as a silly/fake religion (like scientology) because we know so much (including hard facts!) about the founder and he looks rather fishy. Christianity on the other hand is based on second-hand accounts of a guy who lived 2000 years ago with lots of people and lots of time to distort any truth or hard facts. Provided there is still someone around to discuss Mormonism in 2000 years, will the situation look similar? Will the historicity of Joseph Smith be doubted because all sources are tainted or lost? And will it be difficult to find the 'real' Joseph Smith among the others I assume existed at the time?

Discuss! 

This is a thread to speculate about the likely consequences of the introduction of a (ficticious) drug to society.

Let's assume a new drug would be discovered that would significantly enhance mental and maybe bodily capabilities but with the side effect of reducing life expectancy. Let's say for every year the drug is taken life would get shortend by a year.
Maybe the effects would even be accumulative, i.e. the drug's effect would increase with time (let's say 10% per year) but so would the life-shortening effect.
Initially the drug is very costly to produce and can only be sold at 10K $ per month (or at a discount 100K $ per year) but after some time the production costs drop so it could be sold at $10 per month while still breaking even.

How would the producing company react? Would it lower the price to broaden the customer base or keep the prices at levels that only the very rich could afford?
How would the public react? Would people not take the drug because of the side effect or would the advantages essentially force them to take it in order to stay competitive (provided they can somehow get the money, should the price stay high)?
How would government react? Would it try to suppress it, monopolize* it, enforce its use? Would it try to control the price?
What would the elites try to achieve? Would they try to keep it to themselves in order to stay on top? Or would they do the exact opposite, forcefeeding it to low-level employees, so they would be more productive but die so young that no pensions or other benefits would have to be payed?
So, how would the real world consequences look like in your opinion? This is all under the assumption that the positive and negative effects of the drug are inseparable, i.e. the capability gains could not be had without the shortened lifespan.

*an export ban would imo be a secure bet because less scrupulous competitors like China would not care for the side effects and grow a population of short-lived superhumans which would be seen as a real threat to the US.

Fragments from the lost epic Kalethulu

In the ocean the Pacific
In the Southern Sea the endless
Lies the sunken city R'lyeh
Lies the city of the Old One

R'lyeh's roads are lightless gorges
Rays of sunshine never go there
Filled with gloom the streets and alleys
Darkness seeps from ev'ry window

Architecture cyclopean
Of geometry inhuman
Euclid would not know the angles
Could not measure lay or length there

All the lanes lead up the mountain
Meet all at the city's center
Where the dreaded door is looming
Where the master's house is standing

In the house lies Old Cthulhu
Ancient Star-Spawn dead but dreaming
Waiting for the stars returning
Thirsting for the souls of mortals

Closed the portal, deep the darkness
Age-old evil ever brooding
Like a pressure vessel boiling/ Like a putrid plague boil fest'ring
That may burst at any moment

Elder Signs they seal the portal
For/In/Through strange eons never broken
Lock him in the foe unyielding
Keep us safe while they are holding

Deep Ones guard the mausoleum
Keep the watch while he is sleeping
Though their gods are Dagon, Hydra
They still serve the Great Cthulhu

Now that fateful stars are moving
Forming fatal constellations
Dark R'lyeh comes near the surface
Stays no longer at sea's bottom

In his house Cthulhu's stirring
Soon he'll wake from death-like slumber
Even with the seals still holding
They can't stop the dreams he sends now

Water will no longer hem them
Won't prevent them from escaping
Out they go in search of cultists
Far they fly in search of victims

In the madhouse breaks out chaos
No asylum not affected
Who is weak of mind he senses
Who is psychic recognizes

They all hear Cthulhu calling
Feel his presence drawing nearer
See the ancient city rising
Think they stand before the portal

Bended minds reach for the paintbrush
Fill the canvass with vile visions
Half mad sculptors hew the marble
From the rock release forms hellish/ghoulish

Erich Zann now finds companions
Wild go strings and eldritch woodwinds
Fill the air with strange vibrations/harmonics
That no healthy brain can fathom

They see clear that/who know him coming
That/Who have waited through the ages
Long before Man came to power
Or first mammal's tepid footstep

Since the Old One went to slumber
When R'lyeh sank to the bottom
Were/Are prepared his loathsome cultists
For his future resurrection

Races rising, races falling
Never got/was his cult neglected
Be it amphib, reptile, mammal
Never lacked the Star-Spawn servants

In the swamp the cult assembles
Low-bred mongrels, scum and sailors
Stamp (Stump?) the ground beside the bayou
Round the idol carved from green stone/rock

In the ice the cult assembles
Low-bred mongrels, raw-meat eaters
Bow-legged seal-men, fur-clad shamans
And the idol carved from whale bone/tusk

Up on Leng the cult assembles
Low-bred mongrels, slant-eyed monkids1)   1) monk-like beings with allusion to monkeys
Yellow-robed the lowly servants
Yellow-masked the unnamed High-Priest

In the bush the cult assembles
Low-bred mongrels, ebonapid(s)2)      2) black and ape-like, a 'cultured' racial slur
Pygmies, giants intermingling/ed
Hewn of iron wood the idol

Far South-East the cult assembles
Low-bred mongrels, swarthy Kanaks
Bones and feathers mar their faces
Coral-cut their hideous idol

Fires mark each cult assembly
And the cries of helpless victims
Rise above the endless drumbeat
Add their voice to cultist howling

Round each place of cult assembly
Can be heard the same words chanted
Far and wide sounds "wgah'nagl"
Far and wide too sounds "fhtagn"


[Gap of unknown length]


Slowly does the portal open
Huge stone slab is moving inwards
Smoke-like darkness flowing outwards
And a foul stench overwhelming

Hell has no mephitic vapors
Nor miasmas so abhorrent
As now streams out of the entrance
Now escapes into the open

From in there a sound is coming
In the dark there is commotion
Hear the horrid footfalls nearing
Something dreadful is approaching

Star-Spawn steps out through the doorway
Human words cannot describe him
Mountain walking, mountain stumbling
Giant, foul abomination

Living proof no god's in heaven
Thing blaspheming against nature
That what is although it shouldn't
Magnum id/hoc innominandum

Unrelenting body-mangler
Prejudicial mind-destroyer
Never-ceasing soul devourer
Omnicidal murd'rous monster

[following stanzas missing;
They likely contained the rest
of the total 169 (13*13) names of
Cthulhu]

Once again submerges R'lyeh
Ocean covers tombs and temples
Hides once more the Thing's sepulchre
Back to sleep goes Old Cthulhu

Ev'rywhere the cult is cursing
Them that spoiled the master's coming
Swears an oath the deed to punish
The prevented him returning

They will follow to the Earth's end
Seek and slay the sad survivor
Maim and maul the mate who half-mad
Has returned to tell the tale here

Those who hear it must die also
No one may the cult make public
Show to mankind them in hiding
Who in secret serve the Star-Spawn

Be it soon or be it later
Be it when the sun is fading
And the oceans wildly boiling
One day will the world be ready

May the Earth all lie in ruins
With no mammal still there breathing
Still the cult will be there waiting
Knowing that Cthulhu's coming

Stars will show correct formation
Spell the doom of all creation
Usher in the devastation
And the Old One's elevation

Finally he will be ruler
Where the throne so long stood empty
Wield at last alone the scepter
Crown and orb be his forever

Come destroy us, Great Cthulhu
Wake and make an end of mankind
Suck our souls and break our bodies
You the once and future master/monster


[Another fragment]


Worse than even Great Cthulhu
Is his son Ghatanothoa
Those who do not fear the father
Will not dare to face the offspring

Hidden in his mountain fortress
That now too lies under water
Deep inside the stronghold's dungeons
Lurks the ultimate of horrors

There's no need for him to touch you
Lay his claws upon your body
He will not rip you to pieces
Grant the mercy of oblivion

He is worse than any Gorgon
Makes a basilisk seem pleasant
They may petrify forever
But will kill you in the process

If on him your gaze is falling
It will mummify your body
Soul and mind they will stay intact
Badly scarred but never dying

Soul and mind entrapped forever
Through the agony of ages
Closed-in syndrome without ending
Cause your shell will never perish

Never will decay destroy it
Free the soul from earthly bondage
And with Him a constant presence
Rescue cannot reach you ever

Never sleeps Ghanatothoa
In his halls upon high mountain
So whoever will there enter
He must face the son of Star-Spawn

Pray he always will stay in there
Does not come into the open
Does not come down from the mountain
To the steads of sentient beings

Should  a victim's body ever
Come before the eyes of mortals
Out of prudence and of mercy
Hack it instantly to pieces

Do not check the victim's eyeballs
If you do, you'll likely join it
In the orb is fixed the image
Of the petrifying horror

So much power has the monster
With his ghoulish, vile appearance
That such image is sufficient
Too to work the spell so dreadful

[to be continued]

For those interested:
Kalethulu is a contraction of Kall ef Thulu or Kalli Thulu and is derived from Islandic Kall (= Call, Calling, Vocation) and either Þulur (=Speaker, Narrator) or Þula (=song, verse). So it means either Call of the Story-Teller or The Call of Poetry (in very free translation maybe even Siren Song).
No allusion to a certain Finnish piece of literature or the fevered imagination of a Providencial pulp-writer

I assume most of you are familiar with Lewis Carroll's Alice books and their classic illustrations.
Then there is the senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. Seeing that guy I immediately thought he resembled one of the footmen from Alice in Wonderland (in German they are known as 'The Lackey with the Frog/Fish Face' resp.).
Do you think so too? If yes, which one is closer?

Any other hidden Alice characters in politics these days?

I came up with a game of cards and now at last found the time to write it down.
I would be interested in your opinion.

Matchit?

A strictly tactical game of cards for 4 players

Material: A set of numbered cards 4 times 1 to X (X between 10 and 20)

One player is designated SETTER (S), the other 3 are FOLLOWERS (ABC).
A game is played over 4 rounds (of X tricks), so each player fills the position of SETTER once.

Each player at the beginning of each round receives a subset of cards 1 to X, i.e. all players start with the same hand.

The person designated as SETTER selects one of his cards and puts it on the table face-up.
All 3 FOLLOWERs then select one of theirs and put it on the table face-down.
Now the cards on the table are turned face-up.
One or more FOLLOWER cards can MATCH the SETTER card (=have the same number) or not.

If a single FOLLOWER matches the SETTER, he takes the trick.

SABC
5953
=> B takes and gets 22 points

If two FOLLOWERS match the SETTER, the one FOLLOWER not matching takes the trick.

SABC
7377
=> A takes and gets 24 points

IF all three FOLLOWERS match the SETTER, the SETTER takes the trick.

SABC
8888
=> S takes and gets 32 points

If no FOLLOWER matches the SETTER, their cards are compared.

If one FOLLOWER has played a card with a higher number than the other FOLLOWERS, he takes the trick.
It does not matter what card the SETTER has played.

SABC
2596
=> B takes and gets 22 points

Should there be a match between two FOLLOwERS playing the highest card, their cards are discarded.

Variant 1: SETTER and non-matching FOLLOWER each retain their card

SABC
7355
=> S gets 7, A gets 3, B&C get nothing

Variant 2: Non-matching FOLLOWER takes his and the SETTER's card.

SABC
6884
=> C gets 10 points, the others get nothing


If all three FOLLOWERS match each other, the SETTER retains his card, the cards of the FOLLOWERS get discarded.

SABC
3222
=> S gets 3 points, ABC get nothing


-------

Assuming that all players can keep in mind which cards have already been played, they are always fully informed about the current situation since each started with the same subset of cards. So, unlike traditional card games, this should be pure tactics and psychology and not deduction/guessing of the opponent's hand. With only 3 players (SAB) it would not work since there is only one possible strategy: always match. Each round would end with all cards in the hand of the SETTER => draw. If one player would not follow that strategy even for a single trick, he would hand victory to the player always matching. In the 4 player version this is avoided because a trick can be taken by non-matching against 2 matchers or by matching against two non-matchers.
The SETTER can influence the game by e.g. playing a card he knows only one of the FOLLOWERs still possesses, so that player can get a guaranteed single match and take the trick. This would be naturally used to steer points away from a FOLLOWER too successful. More complicated would be a strategy to lure certain cards out, increasing the probability of matches between FOLLOWERS because that (esp. in Variant 1) can lead to the SETTER retaining his card while denying points to the FOLLOWERS.
As I see it, the game is (distantly) related to the Prisoner's Dilemma. The way to win is to be the single dissenter.

Looks like some Pastafarians violated all the teachings and went on a rampage.
Others are quite upset about it and started a collection to help unfoing the damage

[youtube=425,350]5akrlAW_oik[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5akrlAW_oik

[youtube=425,350]c3FZtmlHwcA[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

As it turned out, it was not necessary to evacuate people for many miles around. The environment is not expected to have taken lasting damage. No need to get fat on iodide.