SteveThaiBinh

I heard about that series, and read somewhere that it's not really your typical fantasy book. Wanna tell a bit about them? OT: I have yet to read a fantasy novel/series that had a lasting impression, but then again, I'm more drawn to classic literature... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, it's not elves and orcs and so on. The main character Thomas Covenant is a deeply flawed person, and the more interesting for it. He's well developed, I think, although some of the writing elsewhere is patchy. I remember liking it because Covenant traipsed across the world on some typical fantasy quests, but kept a critical distance and rejected the role of hero. Linden Avery appears in the second half of the series, and her story is also one of resisting the roles that others try to force on her. I really should re-read it...

I read some Robin Hobb recently, and liked it a lot. The setting is more medieval, with elements of fantasy, but very well written. Aside from Terry Pratchett, I haven't read any fantasy for years, but dredging a few names up from the back of my memory... I liked Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, especially the character Linden Avery (?). John Wyndham is well known in the UK, and famous for The Day of the Triffids, but the Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos were my favourites. A lot of people who like sci-fi or fantasy like Jorge Luis Borges' short stories, a mix of fantasy, philosophy, and anything else you care to mention.

I think this is the one that bothers me most. Of course, you can't be sure that any of the others are 'terrorists', either. I'm sure the Kurdish resistance groups who fought Saddam Hussein looked similar. But I don't see any indication in this picture that the people are terrorists. Unless you think every bearded Arabic-speaker with a gun is a terrorist.

I agree. By blaming the hurried production schedule or LucasArts, a lot of people were actually trying to give Obsidian the benefit of the doubt. It seemed the most reasonable explanation for why the last 10% of the game was so much weaker than the preceding 90%. If Obsidian really produced the existing ending because they thought it was better, then I think they just got it wrong. Their story-telling powers failed them, and they misjudged their audience. You take a character-driven story and rip out all the other characters before the end, without explanation. You have an 'Empire Strikes Back' ending for a game where, in all likelihood, none of the characters in the story will be returning for part 3. (I could go on, but it's been said before, and better than I can express). Of course, Obsidian is not a monolith ( ). I mean, I'm sure there were creative discussions and disagreements amongst the writing team. In the end, they chose the wrong option, but the cut endings suggest that the company can produce the good ideas, it just needs to get better at recognising them. It's grounds for optimism about future projects.

And so easily recognisable because of the black hats they wear. What if it turns out that it wasn't a terrorist?

I would say this is still broken, in the sense that you don't encounter the criminals on the surface, and once you've left that area and the quest becomes unsolvable, it remains in your journal. Although you could argue that as your character doesn't know this, it should remain. Probably felt there were too many stickies after the two forums were combined. They took up my whole screen.

I lived in what was South Vietnam for a year, and then the North for two years, and I was in the North on September 11. You won't find a lot of sympathy for the US in either half, in my experience. People in the north blame the US entirely for the war, people in the south divide the blame between the North Vietnamese, the US and the corrupt South Vietnamese leaders equally. I always treated what people said with caution, of course. Viet Nam is still a Communist country, and people can't speak freely to foreigners, certainly not to be critical of the Party. Someone in south Vietnam told me that they had been happy when the Americans left, because it meant the war was over. But then they were angry because when the North Vietnamese arrived, the repression was pretty severe. That said, people are remarkably forgiving and don't bear grudges. They have a fairly positive attitude towards the US, given all they have suffered. But they are understandably intolerant of what they see as the US wars of aggession in Afghanistan, Iraq and others.

If you implement this, then Americans abroad can expect to get the same treatment from other countries. They won't put up with it, and will return home, as will foreign workers in the US. Global trade will be damaged and an economic recession could even be triggered. People in the US and across the world will lose their jobs. Whose security will that improve?

On September 11 2001 I was living in Viet Nam. I didn't have a television, so although I saw photos in newspapers, I didn't see the television pictures of the events until nearly two years later when I returned to the UK. I wonder sometimes if not sharing in the trauma of those days, in the whole media spectacle, has affected my views. What I most remember about the events was how unsympathetic my Vietnamese friends were. They felt sorry for the people who died and for their families, but they didn't feel sorry for 'America'. In fact, they hoped that America would finally understand the horror that America inflicted upon that Viet Nam - everyone I knew had lost a relative, usually an uncle or grandfather, in the war. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out like that.

Well, when the time came it turned out that the US, which had been insisting on humane treatment of POWs for decades, didn't respect the Geneva Conventions much either. I'm not an expert by any means, but here's what I think. Since the Geneva Conventions were created, they have been repeatedly flouted by all sides, Western and otherwise. However, treatment of prisoners of war has improved. The real achievement of the Geneva Conventions has been to promote the idea that POWs should receive decent treatment. Ideas are powerful. The existence of a (perhaps impractical) idea is nevertheless a force for making the real situation better. While any brutal dictator can flout the terms of the Geneva Conventions, no dictator, not Pinochet, not Saddam Hussein, has been able to undermine the power of the ideas the conventions represent. But the US has the power to do just that, and is doing that, because as the leader of the free world it has given up on respecting the rights of detainees. That threatens to throw the whole process into reverse. The US government has chosen a narrow view of national security and does not yet understand how completely its moral authority has been destroyed, or why that is important.

Would you like to specify a sex, appearance, Jedi class, stats? Edit: Actually, looking at the size of the save games (14Mb), I don't think my email server will let me send it. Sorry. Maybe someone else could help?

Very psychedelic. :D

I fully support your right not to be a homosexual, not to have an abortion, and not to believe in evolution. I hope you will never attempt to deny others the right to be homosexual, to have an abortion, or to believe in evolution.

Detaining people temporarily while investigations are pursued is a reasonable compromise between protecting individual human rights and protecting wider society. Detaining people permanently without access to legal redress is not. Human rights are universal, as are the Geneva Conventions. They were inspired by Western culture, but not Western culture alone, and they no longer belong to the West in any sense. Citizens of all countries struggle to force their governments to respect human rights, some with more success than others. I'm not sure which countries you are referring to, so perhaps you could specify. However, many countries do respect the Geneva Conventions, or at least can be pressured to do so. By ignoring the conventions, the US has severely weakened its own ability to pressure other governments to respect human rights, yet another sad and unnecessary outcome of the Guantanamo Bay fiasco.

Yes, if there is no evidence against them that will stand up in a court of law, I would rather have them released. I am not afraid of these people, however much Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair would like me to be. My common sense tells me that injustice breeds injustice, and 'not doing things by the book' is a lovely euphemism for injustice. What's happening in Guantanamo Bay is that the US government is trying to sell the world a version of reality in which there are certain people who are not people, who have no rights or dignity, and are covered by no laws. I reject this outright. As for canteens, what lies underneath this is human dignity. Expressing your religious beliefs, if you have any, contact with other human beings, perhaps even earning privileges with your own efforts, these are the things that make people human in their own eyes and the eyes of others. If you are proved to have commited a crime, it is right and reasonable that you be denied freedom to be part of wider society. But attempting to deny prisoners everything that makes them human looks a lot like petty spite to me, and it dishonours the US government and people that they allow it to continue.

Well, Obsidian said 'soon' before they were in a position to be sure that it would really be soon. Then they got stuck with it - howls of protest that the 'soon' stayed on their webpage, but equally loud howls of protest if they'd removed it. Not an easy position to get out of. Aurora's crew look to be taking a more sensible approach - concrete progress updates about what they've done and are doing (to satisfy the howling masses), but wisely reticent about when the finished product can be expected.

Sorry, but terrorists and POWs aren't afforded luxuries. It's bad enough that common prisoners are. But terrorists? Don't make me freaking laugh. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't see the luxuries in this list, with the possible exception of food sent from outside. In addition, these are men who are being detained supposedly for public safety reasons; they are not being punished for crimes, because they haven't been convicted of crimes. Because there's no evidence against them, only 'intelligence'. From an extreme point of view, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that means everyone in Guantanamo is innocent. Perhaps a more reasoned response is to criticise the Guantanamo detentions because they were made on the basis of intelligence, not evidence. A lot of people don't really understand what 'intelligence' means in this context, in part because the issue is deliberately confused by governments. When a UK report about intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq was published, we learned that intelligence is essentially what some drunk bloke overheard at a party, but written down on official headed notepaper. That anyone could be imprisoned at all on the basis of such rubbish is astonishing. Intelligence has only one function - it is a guide to investigators to help them know where to look for evidence. To use it as though it were evidence is criminal, in my view. Well, you're not listening very hard. Lots of people complain, unfortunately we're not listened to. That's part of society's response to crime - degrade the prisoners, dehumanise them, and ridicule anyone who expresses concern for their welfare. No wonder ex-prisoners find it so hard to reintegrate into society when they're released, and no wonder the rate of reoffending is so high. War cannot really be legal or humane, no. But there is a difference between a war fought for self-defense and a war of aggression and conquest, even though the difference can sometimes be hard to see. The conduct of individuals during war can be humane or not, I think. This is a big debate in the UK now, over the suicides or murders of several recruits at an army camp. Is it possible to teach soldiers to use brute force without brutalising them as people? I don't think we've discovered the best way yet, as shown by the human rights abuses committed by UK and US troops in Iraq. But as war probably isn't going to go away, we need to make the effort.

We'll look into that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That seems to be fixed in the patch.

Yeah <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Great! That means when the movie patch comes out they'll be even better. I've no complaints.

To me, they already look better. Is it just because the resolution has changed?

Well, I've always played in 800x600, and the screen always used to jump when it started to play a movie, suggesting that it was switching to 640x480. Now it doesn't, so I think that the movie is playing in 800x600 . I just saw the Visas intro movie, and it didn't look any better, but the others all have so far.

Yes, I have the UK version. I can't tell if the music has changed much as I'm using headphones at the moment, but the movies definitely look better.

Be sure to let us know what mark we get.

Well, T3's dialogue skipped again on arriving at Telos. And that Ithorian got stuck behind the door again. I guess they had their hands full with the major bugs, which is fair enough. The movies are definitely better. Sion's arrival at Peragus was the most noticeable yet.

Movies look better to me, especially the space battle before Dxun, which I always thought was the worst. And it doesn't flicker between movies as the screen resolution changes. Much smoother, more cinematic feel.