SteveThaiBinh

Actually that works really well, I think. A very convincing younger Bao-Dur. So many soldiers are barely more than kids.

Looks excellent. Nice expression on the Exile's face, but she wants to be careful with her lightsaber and that hair, it's an accident waiting to happen.

Dreamfall's not there, though I saw it on an earlier list somewhere. Still due later this year, as far as I know. I just started replaying The Longest Journey, which made me think of this. I must remember to get the thing out of the monkey before I use it.

If a LucasArts executive in a forest cancels the patch and then a tree falls on him, should we laugh or cry?

Seven. I looked at SYS 64738 for a while and couldn't quite get it; it was only when I tried typing it out on the keyboard that the familiarity of the pattern came back and I remembered.

PC Zone has screenshots of Civilisation IV this issue! It's the first games magazine I've bought for months. I looked this morning for PC Gamer (UK) and didn't see it on the shelves. Has it been out for a while? Maybe all copies have been sold to Aurora fans?

Initially, it seemed some reviewers listen to the hype and wrote rave reviews without playing the game to the end or using their own judgement. Is it possible that now, some reviewers are listening to the sometimes hyperbolic hostile fan reaction and writing overly negative reviews without playing the game objectively or using their own judgement. Too cynical? Well, maybe. Some of the criticisms listed above are fair and were overlooked by the first reviews. But others are spurious, aren't they? There were technical advances, such as shorter loading times, but they weren't showy advances. And they don't seem to give credit for strong dialogue, characters, interesting philosophical ideas.

I think the worry is that Glazer has borrowed heavily to buy shares in Manchester United, and now the club will have to pay off the debt (with interest). It hardly improves the financial situation of the club. Capitalism is very strange sometimes.

HK's finest moment.

I need eight hours. I usually get six or seven hours during the week, then make up the extra at the weekends.

Not the deadliest. Deadliest.

Revan is the more popular and memorable character, therefore Revan would win. Narrative beats game mechanics, every time.

Was it fun?

It's evidence that human beings are imperfect and complex, not that they are corrupted. We have created many decent societies that work for the benefit of most or all citizens, and we are striving to create more. Atheists are hard to scare: I personally walk through thunderstorms without the slightest anxiety.

That's hardly an indication of any single issue, especially abolishing tax! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Perhaps. I think the kind of low-tax, low-welfare society that Reveilled describes probably can exist and be successful, if you judge it in its own terms. I just don't want to live there. Although I argue against it, I'm doing so according to my own criteria of the kind of society I want to live in, and ultimately there's unlikely to be fundamental agreement between us. So the only way to resolve the issue is through the democratic process. There is a danger of assuming a general election victory means endorsement of a particular policy, but this danger is greater with side issues, such as the hunting ban, than key issues such as tax and the economy. In the end, I suppose the government has to proceed as if it did have a mandate, even if it doesn't really. Otherwise you have chaos and confusion. In our last election, there wasn't a political party putting forward Reveilled's vision of society. Maybe someone should start one, and test the country's opinion on this issue.

Thank you for imposing your version of the game upon me. In fact, why don't you just wipe my mind and imprint your fascist pronouns onto my very identity? I'm free this afternoon from four.

The poorest in society pay little tax as it is. Abolishing social security and reducing taxes would help them very little, and charity would not be able to make up for it. The result would be devastating to the individuals involved and to society as a whole. Consumer boycotts are too blunt an instrument to be effective in making rich people give to charity. You might shame the company head, as you say, but most of senior management are likely to be fairly rich, but out of the public eye. Again, you're looking at an enormous shortfall. The rich do have an obligation to pay tax, just like everyone else. And we decide the level of tax and the way it will be spent through democratic elections. I notice that the Conservatives didn't just win.

This was my understanding, too. Revan's memory was lost in her near death experience battling with Bastila. Giving her a new identity was necessary for her own good. The morality issue is in the decision to choose an identity loyal to the Republic in order to serve the Jedi council, as opposed to one that was similar to Revan's original identity. Given the doubts and disagreements this caused on the Council, I can't imagine it's something that happens every day.

People in general are generous, but the rich are not generous in proportion to their wealth. The idea was being suggested that you could abolish the welfare state and voluntary donations would make up for it. I think there would be a huge shortfall, in part due to the richest in society failing to donate sufficiently. The poorer you are, the more you understand the nature of poverty and need, and the more generous you are.

I'm not sure who you're addressing, so I'll assume that you're addressing all atheists. Well, there are unfortunately some who do believe that they are superior to believers, although they're not guilty of anything worse than many believers themselves. As a humanist, I think we should discuss these things in order to achieve better understanding of each other. I strongly believe that human beings are capable of making the world a better place through their actions and without supernatural intervention, and that mutual understanding and respect are key to this. That's my agenda, if you like. There's no point in prosyletising or ridiculing other belief systems, as this acts as a barrier to understanding.

No. There's no assumption behind that approach. However, we don't know if a gay couple (be it male or female) can provide the same psychological imprints than a heterosexual one can (I have my doubts regarding sexual roles, but anyway). And since we don't know, I don't think it would be fair to the adoptee to just "try and see if it works" only to satisfy the adoptants. Obviously, the ability to procreate has no direct relation to the ability to raise children, as is proven by the fact that many otherwise normal heterosexual couples are unable to conceive due to sterility issues. But, it is not less true that it is an unnatural (as in impossible by natural means) and anomalous situation for a child to have both parents of the same gender. So far, the possible repercussions of this are not fully known. But the state's duty is to protect the rights of the weakest, in this case, the child. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If a man or woman in a heterosexual couple are infertile, then it is also unnatural for them to have a child. There's no evidence that their infertility would make them bad parents, but there's probably no evidence to the contrary, either. So where does the burden of proof lie? Should they prove that they would be good parents? For adoption, the answer is yes. But gay people should have to prove themselves against exactly the same standards. Sexual orientation is not part of the equation. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'psychological imprints', because my knowledge of psychology is limited. What exactly is it that a heterosexual couple can provide that a gay couple perhaps cannot? No. Don't try to twist my words unless it's a flame war you're after. If it sounds reasonable and you find yourself unable to refute the arguments, then perhaps it not only sounds reasonable, but it is. As I said, in an adoption case, the adoptee's welfare overrules any other concerns, including the would-be adoptants' right. And while I'm all for an equality legislation, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of puttiing that equality before all other considerations. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I'm certainly not trying to start a flame war, or to twist your words, so I apologise if I offended you. But I do worry about equality and discrimination in society as a whole. It's not enough to have laws outlawing discrimination - we as a society need to understand, and to internalise, a way of thinking that values all members of society. Let's take a hypothetical example. A state adoption system uses a points system to evaluate the suitability of parents who wish to adopt. The points system looks at things like income, personality etc., but not sexuality. Couple A are heterosexual, and score 80 points (higher is better). Couple B are gay and score 82 points. The adoption workers have as their primary duty to protect the welfare of the child. So therefore the best decision is to give the child to couple B. 'Playing it safe', because there may or may not be some problem with having gay parents, is not really in the interests of the child - the child's interest is to go with the better parents. The adoption workers are accountable for their decisions and have to base them on evidence, not on supposition.

It would be nice, and would add to realism. It means a lot of extra resources spent on alternative dialogues and so on, but this just has to be accepted. If you create a game that aims to be an immersive experience, then you raise the bar for what players expect. If your characters can swing in alignment from DS to LS, it's unrealistic that their dialogue or behaviour should not change as well.

Over the centuries, that is indeed what has happened. But it's not helpful to rub people's noses in it, and the elements of religion that have been 'downgraded' to allegory are not the fundamentals that make believers believe. All religions have a core that is not challenged by science - usually that there is a supernatural being who loves us. Their faith in that is as resolute as ever, it seems.

This approach starts from the idea that gay couples are in deficit, that their child-rearing skills are to be questionned because they are biologically incapable of giving birth to a child. Of course, this assumes that we're talking about gay men - lesbians can obtain artificial insemination through methods no more anomalous than any heterosexual couple with fertility problems. However, the main point is that the child-rearing has little or nothing to do with the biological ability to produce children. I've never read any studies on what the qualities of a good child-rearer are, but I imagine that love for the child and a stable relationship figure prominently, and the biological ability to produce children does not. This sounds to me like discrimination couched in very reasonable language. The idea is that 'we', the heterosexuals, shall sit in judgement over 'them', the gays, and 'they' shall not adopt children until they have produced evidence with which 'we' are satisfied. Most countries now have equality legislation, and that means the burden of proof lies with the opponents of gay adoptions to find some reason why it's wrong.

Is it? First of all, you have to assume that the rich are so generous that they will give enough to alleviate poverty and suffering in their own countries. I doubt this. I recently read a survey showing that people on relatively low incomes were the most generous, in terms of proportion of income spent on charity in the UK, but it was still tiny relative to the amount of money needed to keep thousands of people above the poverty line. The rich, on the whole, are extremely mean. State-organised social security has a more reliable source of income and is better able to tackle poverty. Because it does not rely on the whims of the fickle rich, comprehensive plans can be made (though this does not always happen, of course). It is also, and I accept this may be a cultural difference between the US and Europe, seen as a right. All citizens have a right to a minimum standard of living, because anything else demeans us all and our society.