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SteveThaiBinh

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Posts posted by SteveThaiBinh

    The Thick of It

    in Way Off-Topic

    Posted

    Better Off Ted is the funniest comedy I've seen on TV in ages.

     

    The BBC has a system of commissioning comedy writers to make radio series for Radio 4 - the series that are successful are then adapted for TV. The problem is that the radio originals are almost always much better than the TV versions. This was true for The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh etc.

    UK Politics

    in Way Off-Topic

    Posted

    Wals, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the current state of defence procurement in the UK. I've been reading the blog of Conservative MP Douglas Carswell recently, and he's pretty damning about how our money is spent.

    UK Politics

    in Way Off-Topic

    Posted

    Just to put it in relevance (and I'll admit it's going to be rough because I'm remembering it from a political talk show a couple of months back) but back in '95, the budget for the "quango" side of things, was somewhere around 18.7 million. 2010 and we're talking 80 billion. Something has to be seriously wrong to say that in 15 years, our unelected officials have grown by that much. Or are you just saying that they decided to change the definition of quango's while labour was running the government? :sorcerer:

    No, I'm not really saying that, because I don't have detailed knowledge of the subject. I think it's certainly in the character of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to pass government functions over to quangos on the grounds that they're impartial and at arm's length, and therefore so that if something goes wrong, the government can escape the blame. So the increase in quango spending is very dramatic, I agree, however the spending probably falls into at least four categories I can think of off-hand:

     

    1. Functions that should be carried out by quangos and are necessary. (courts, research funding)

    2. Functions that are necessary but should be transfered back to government control and accountability. (a number of education quangos fit this bill)

    3. Functions that are not necessary and can simple be done away with. (potato marketing)

    4. Waste/abuse (like the salaries of some quango heads, or 'training days' in luxury hotels)

     

    3 and 4 get the headlines, but I suspect a lot of the spending is actually in 1 and 2. I'm sure there are economies to be had, and direct government accountability over more functions ought to increase efficiency and decrease waste, but I can't see where massive cuts will come from. Do you have a breakdown of where the growth in spending has been since 1995? That would be an interesting read.

    UK Politics

    in Way Off-Topic

    Posted

    The Uk budget for non-elected bodies, called 'quangos' funded from the public purse stands at around 80 billion UKP.

     

    The budget for the MoD stands at around 40 bn UKP.

     

    The case against quangos seems inassailable to me. These are bodies engaged in spending government money - lots of money - without any real oversight and whose senior staff make as much if not more than the ministers who are supposed to oversee them. If they fail to do any good they are rarely held accountable, and even when they do as badly as the Financial Services Authority, they take a long time to wind up. Moreover there is no shortage of bodies engaged in apparent busywork. Such as the health agency which tells us the shocking fact that if we eat fatty food and do no exercise it is bad for our health! Never mind the quango Potato Council who are actually funding an 'eat chips week'.

     

    I need hardly go into detail on the case for the Ministry of Defence. It is vastly underfunded, and yet is being asked to make massive double figure percentage cuts.

     

    Cut quangos by 75%, raise the the MoD budget 150%, save 20 billion. Simples.

     

    I believe that this is THE hot topic in UK politics.

    I don't think you could just cut 75% of the budget of quangos. Of course, the amount of money spent by quangos depends on how you define a quango, and part of the problem is that our government is badly designed and messy, and a lot of public money has been wasted. Nevertheless, the spending figures for quangos tend to include things like the prison service, the courts, museums, the bodies that fund scientific research, and so on. Yes, there's a case that some of these bodies don't need the autonomy of quango status and could be brought back under direct government control and accountability, but I don't think there are huge savings there. There are some quangos that could quite easily be abolished and their function simple done away with, though.

    Acti-Evil, or Evil Arts strike again!

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Governments need to save, so tax breaks seem a bit counterproductive right now. I think that decision came solely from some UK ministers, not teh evil usual suspect.

    I agree. Britain is trying to avoid turning into Greece. Ideologically this government would be very happy to give tax breaks to a growing sector of industry, but the money's just not there right now.

    The Reviews

    in Alpha Protocol: General Discussion

    Posted

    We're here to discuss the game and its reviews - please remember that directly insulting another community member is against forum guidelines. I'm going to clean up some recent posts that I feel break this rule, and I hope we can keep the tone more constructive from now on. o:)

    Steam now has preload for AP

    in Alpha Protocol: General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm still stuck in perpetual preload land. :/

     

    I'm in Asia BTW, so this is like a weekend party pooped as this is what got me through work. I even bought all the necessary stuff to not need to leave the room over the weekend and blew off a camping trip with my old classmates. Damn it Valve quit trolling me. :/

    I'm in the Middle East and getting the same screen. Hopefully it will unlock when North America does. Not living there or in Europe or Japan, we're a bit of an afterthought, but at least Steam doesn't automatically block us from buying games (like some other sites do).

    Top 100 Videogame Villains - IGN

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Manannan was a great adventure game villain. In a genre dominated by picking up random objects, here's a guy who kills you on the spot for picking up random objects. :)

     

    I would also mention Von Glower from GK2 and Katrina from QfG4 as memorable villains.

     

    And it is a disgrace that Kreia's not there.

    What are you playing now

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Finally got around to start a game of SoZ. My party features a Ranger/Blackguard (my protagonist), a Rogue/Assassin, a Cleric/Frenzied Berserker and a Wizard/Red Wizard of Thay.

     

    May the most evil party win :)

    You know, that reminded me that there's more to NWN2 than the main quest story - I thought about playing last week but didn't fancy it, but now I think I might go through Mysteries of Westgate again - I only ever finished that once, and not with an evil character.

     

    Thanks to gog.com, I'm playing though Gabriel Knight - finished 1 and 2, about a third of the way through 3. It's been a while since I played and the graphics on GK3 haven't aged well, even with high resolution settings. I did enjoy GK2 without having to swap all the disks around. ;)

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