SteveThaiBinh

No need to worry now, the US military is investigating. The truth will be made public shortly, no doubt.

He was wholly innocent, and very vulnerable, and our duty as a society was to protect him, not to kill him. I don't have the details of his medical condition, nor am I a doctor or a psychologist, but had he been detained rather than shot, would any court have convicted him of a crime? Though al-Qaeda do screw up from time to time, the armed 'Air Marshall' with a shoot-to-kill policy is, as I suggested, a relatively easy obstacle for the committed suicide terrorist to overcome. So we get the negative impact on public-police relations of a shoot-to-kill policy, plus a number of dead innocents in accidents, for little practical increase in security. I'm having a wisdom tooth taken out next week. Thank you for sharing your story. :ph34r:

Well that doesn't fit in the address bar, so taking Tigranes suggestion, I'm just going to ignore it.

Middle anti-clockwise Left anti-clockwise Right clockwise

If this were a real (suicide) terrorist, he wouldn't have run around saying he had a bomb, he would just have detonated it. The 'Air Marshall' would have been unable to stop him. This is why 'shoot-to-kill' policies are wrong and unnecessary. The hypothetical situation of the terrorist with his finger on the trigger who needs to be taken out immediately doesn't occur in practice because there's little chance the 'Air Marshall' would spot him and no reason for the terrorist to reveal himself before the attack. If you put armed men on planes with a shoot-to-kill policy, the result is dead innocent people, as we have just seen. There will probably be more.

Awww, thank you. Though I'm now going with the 'cut and paste it into the address bar' method. Not that it's usually worth it: Indeed. I hope everyone was nice to the new guy when they started posting, so they weren't scared away.

Look over in the other forum for the Acclaim thread. Who wouldn't want a decade-old video game license? 'Ecco the Dolphin' - a perfect gift for the kiddies, teach them environmentalism or whatever.

It's not exactly a hive of activity, is it? I wonder if the current bidders are companies that actually think they can make money out of it, or nostaligia buffs/collectors out for a little piece of gaming history. I guess everything that doesn't sell becomes abandonware, if it wasn't already.

I wouldn't know about that, since I never play FPS games. My point was that I was able to enjoy VtM:B precisely because the combat didn't require skill or reflexes and so didn't present, except on occasion, a problem for me. Unless of course that's typical of FPS, in which case I might start buying some if they have good stories for me to enjoy.

Is there any reason to have a seven-day week, other than that the religions seem to demand it? I could go for a six-day week (four work, two weekend ).

What happened to all the blue?

They used to. There were always announcements about turning off electrical devices, including computers and phones, during landing and take-off. Maybe the technology has improved? The issue is what kind of arms, if any, are most suitable for an 'Air Marshall' to carry, so the choice has to be appropriate for all stages of the journey. I'd prefer not to have armed officials on the plane at all, though more for security reasons than for fear of gunshots bringing down the plane.

I always thought Darth Bandon won on points.

You can have real-time combat, so long as it doesn't require actual skill on the part of the player (I'm thinking VtM:B here). I don't play shooters or action/arcade games, and can imagine struggling if that kind of combat were introduced into RPGs.

New series airs in the UK in January. My sister actually jumped up and down when I told her. It was quite scary. :ph34r: (I like it, too. It's a lot better than JAG, that's for sure.) That bird looks worryingly pleased with itself.

There's a potential problem right there. How big an axe are we talking here? Tasers are probably out - if mobile phones interfere with the plane's controls, what would a taser do? How about tranquiliser darts? Could one be made that was fast-acting enough that the terrorist couldn't detonate the bomb by remote control?

Is there a good reason, in this age of consumer power and customisation, why games shouldn't offer all the above options to the player's taste?

Many followers of a religion opt out of certain rules or practices that they don't like. Few follow slavishly to the point of being incapable to think. So long as people are free to leave their religion should they choose, which in a free society they are, you can't really interfere in their decision-making process. I find that rather comforting. Does anyone know what Scmarth is talking about?

No, but he might have been incapable of understanding that it wouldn't be taken as a joke. I've heard a couple of fairly reliable stories of people who'd said they had a bomb in the suitcase at British customs, and got strip-searched or worse for their trouble. That was back in the IRA days, of course, but it was unimaginable then that you'd be shot just for a stupid joke. I wonder if the US is about to embark on the same debate about shoot-to-kill policies that we had after that Brazilian guy was shot in London.

This would be the only part I take issue with. Giving special privileges to any faith, even if the majority practice it, discriminates against the minority who do not. Otherwise, if church attendance starts to increase, church leaders could start demanding that their privileges increase to match. Not only do we have them, we're updating and expanding them with new 'incitement to religious hatred' laws. Soon it may be a crime to tell jokes about religious belief, if Rowan Atkinson is right. Religious Education is much improved from my school days, when the (Conservative) Education Minister was saying that schools should 'Teach Christianity and teach about other religions'. They've even included humanism as one of the belief systems to be studied.

Lusting after a woman doesn't count, because science has shown that we're all pre-programmed to do that. Using the Lord's name in vain doesn't count, because all authority figures have to put up with satire - it's a key part of free speech, and God should try not to be so precious. As for the other three, isn't it amazing how bad deeds count against you, but good deeds don't count in your favour. How is that fair? It seems unfair because it's against our instinctive understanding of justice. It seems unfair because it is unfair. You know, I think that even if I believed in Christ, I would refuse to believe in him on principle. If I ever have a child, you're not baby-sitting.

I haven't committed any crime against God. If he wants to charge me with something specific, let him do so, and we'll hear it in a court of law with a jury present. That last is important - justice demands that I be judged by my peers. I'm not OK with the idea that people are sinful from birth. Have you ever seen a baby? They're so innocent and helpless, and have so much hardship ahead of them already, it's actually shameful that we brand them as sinful simply in order to construct a world view that pleases us.

(w00t) One for Aimo, I think: Malak and Revan's School Days.

What is this, the Bioware forums? I guess a lot of Obsidian's reputation is based on games the individual employees made before they joined the company, more than the company's sole release so far. But that reputation must have been good, otherwise why would they have won the job to write sequels to two very successful games?

If I had to choose a religion, it would probably be Bahai, a very tolerant faith. Caodai is interesting too, but the big eye is too scary. There are lots of little religions and belief systems in the world that most people never encounter. Maybe that's for the best, though.