SteveThaiBinh

The patch has just been released.

Mine's just updated. Took about eight minutes. It says it includes high quality movies and music, so I'm just about to go into it and have a look.

Wow, and it's actually true. Who would have thought it? Thanks, Obsidian. And I guess LucasArts as well.

How good is your aim?

After the first three movies (when I was a kid) I thought it there was no genetic component either. It seemed to be more like Buddhist enlightenment, that anyone could achieve it through meditation and discipline, though in practice few did. Then we got the midiwhatsits, and it just seemed to debase the whole idea. I don't like it any more than I like the idea of genetically 'perfect' children being engineered today. If I lived in the Star Wars universe, I don't think I would find it easy to accept a Jedi as a judge or mediator on the basis of his genetic makeup.

Yes I do, it could be anything, airliners, mass transportation, extent of highway roads, medical care, etc... A nation is defined first by its technologicl, industrial, and economical power. The U.S. standard of living is the second highest in the world and no nation would dare to assault U.S. soil. We have space shuttles and dozens of satellites. We have put a man on the moon, who else can claim the same? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The US is eighth in the latest Human Development Index. Standard of living is about much more than economic wealth. A nation can be defined by much more than technological, industrial and economic power. It's no surprise that Americans rank these as highest, because those are the areas where they succeed. What about richness of culture, diversity, bio-diversity, equitable distribution of wealth, democratic openness and indeed human rights? There are many ways of defining nations and their success or otherwise. National security is about much more than military force. Did the US' military strength keep it safe on September 11? Is it keeping US troops safe in Iraq? Unless the US ackowledges the limits of military power soon, the result could be a disaster for it and for the world. Moreover, security is more than just military and national security. How secure are poor Americans kept safe from al-Qaeda bombs only to die because they don't have medical insurance?

It's difficult to compare human rights between countries, because of the need for a common standard. Indexes such as the Observer Human Rights Index tend to rank the US fairly low, but that's mainly because they include executions and death sentences as human rights abuses, something many Americans would disagree with. Even the strongest pro-US commentator wouldn't claim that the US has the best human rights record in the world, better than Scandinavia, for example. What they would do is claim that the US' responsiblities around the world, and it's role as world policeman, make such a perfect human rights record impossible. Well, sorry about that. I hear it's pretty comfortable as far as POW camps go. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1098391,00.html The problem is that we really don't know. Who do we believe, the released detainees or the US government? I worry for the future of the American nation, because if it emerges that the detainees' account was the more accurate, it will have a devastating effect on the nation's confidence and sense of self worth, more even than Viet Nam did. We in Europe certainly did depend on the threat of US power, including nuclear power, during the Cold War. It's more debatable whether we still do. However, when I was in Latvia, I noticed that Latvians are much more worried about a resurgent Russian Empire than us in Western Europe. We don't want to break the alliance with the US, but there may come a time soon where we have to. NATO includes the clause that an attack on one member state is an attack on all, but when European countries invoked that after September 11 and offered help with the attack on Afghanistan, we were treated with utter contempt by the US. Furthermore, Bush's attempt to embroil NATO in his Iraq war, completely unrelated to any attack on NATO territory, jeopardised the alliance. I cannot accept that the US is going around stirring up trouble and creating instability across the world, but one day I might be called upon to defend the US with my life from the avoidable consequences of those actions.

You know there's an 'O' icon that appears on a thread if a developer has posted there? Can we have a new 'A' icon, if Aurora or another member of the restoration team has posted? That's where my priority is at the moment.

I think they deleted the magazine scan. It's copyright infringement. EDIT: Oops. No they didn't, I just scrolled past it. Odd though, I'm surprised they would leave it up.

It's April the First. I must have dreamed the last two weeks. So bizarre, but in a good way. I wonder if it will show here as well...

Possibly September 11, not that it's directly relevant, I mean the feeling it created that a violent response was necessary. Or maybe he hasn't changed his mind and it's just plain family loyalty that's keeping him quiet. He's unlikely to criticise his own son's policies, whatever he feels personally.

Whoever develops Kotor 3 will have to use a different engine. It won't be released for another 2-3 years. If you bring out something with the old engine, it will be getting 3/10 for graphics in major review magazines. That will hit sales hard. The developers will have a choice between developing their own new engine or using someone else's. Obsidian's NWN2 engine might be a candidate for that.

Nihon no kakusei wa hen desu ne? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Gaikoku no sensei mo hen desu yo.

One problem is that the word 'patriotism' can encompass a spectrum of different meanings ranging from affection and critical respect for one's country to undying devotion and being utterly blind to its faults. What is meant by the word changes according to your mother tongue, generation and cultural background. For example, the US government has introduced a Patriot Act, I believe. Irrespective of its content, even a conservative government in the UK could not introduce an act with that name. Most people, including moderate conservatives, would be uncomfortable and associate it with reckless nationalism. That doesn't mean that Americans are super-nationalist nazis or that Brits are all lefties. It's a product of different cultures and histories. So let's not worry too much over one word.

"Oh dear. I broke him."

Jar Jar has dropped below 60%. This is not good; this is not the message we need to be sending George Lucas. Vote Jar Jar now, if you want to avoid "Jar Jar: The Movie".

That's true in the UK as well, and the product of European history. Since the Second World War we've all been enouraged to suppress or to moderate our nationalism, given the amount of damage it's done. I've seen documentaries from the US showing houses with the US flag on a pole in the garden, and they have a family ceremony twice a day to raise or lower it. Of course, they're perfectly normal, decent people in the context of the US. But if you did that in the UK, everyone would think you were either insane or a fascist. Unfortunately, US nationalism and patriotism is getting out of hand, and some Americans seem to have an unrealistically idealised vision of their own country. Look at what happened in Iraq. The US government assumed that it would be able to bring peace and stability easily, with hardly any troops on the ground. Sure, the UN had got into a mess every time it tried to do peace-keeping, but that's because it's the corrupt and incompetent UN; American soldiers will be able to work miracles simply by virtue of being American. It just didn't turn out that way. I was talking to an American friend a few weeks ago about civics education, which has just been introduced here in the UK. For us, it's quite internationalist in outlook, with lots of information about links with the developing world and Europe and the fight against poverty. My friend said that they have civics education in the US, but it's mostly about how great the US is.

Well, you are a six-foot invisible rabbit, after all. It must have been hard to fit in, and literally to fit through some of the doors.

You underestimate the extent of US influence and power. I accept that much, perhaps most, of the poverty we see today is not the fault of the US directly. But I can give you lots of cases where US policy has made matters worse, if you like. I appreciate the validity of your argument, but as you're making it on grounds of efficiency and effectiveness, and I'm making mine from an ethical point of view, we're unlikely to agree.

That's the kind of demagogy that I love to hear. Again, nobody forces you to join the military. If you do it, you must keep in mind the possible consequences of that decision. Let's not mistake things. Being a soldier is potentially the most dangerous job there is. It's not something to be taken lightly or merely as a shortcut to other things. It means you become cannon fodder at the government's disposal. What you can't do is have the interests of the country be subject to some cowardly hedonist notion of what being a soldier is. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I was referring to the draft. The draft means that the consequences of military action are borne equally by all sectors of society, not disproportionately by the poor and new immigrants, as seems to be the case now. This will have the effect, not of abolishing war perhaps, but encouraging the government to be more cautious before choosing the military option.

Unfortunately, many of the non-US recruits to the US army are from Latin American countries where they have few opportunities because of widespread poverty. And unfortunately, that poverty is often in part the fault of United States policy, foreign and economic. There's a serious ethical problem there. I think if you want him to fight and possibly die to serve your country, citizenship would be the first thing you would give him, not quite literally, the last .

I like the normal Jedi robes. The big fluffy green one looks like a dressing gown. And the Z-whatever-sha robes make me think 'beetle'.

It it also means that the government will think more carefully before sending troops abroad to fight in unnecessary wars. When the rich and powerful have kids in the military, I think the national interest will be more narrowly defined.

Yes, citizenship before you die, not conditional upon you dying.

Poverty is a great way of keeping recruitment to the military up, if you're of a conspiracy-theory frame of mind. What disturbs me is the non-US recruits in the US army. They get sent into combat, and rewarded with posthumous US citizenship if they get killed. That just feels wrong to me. Armies are necessary, perhaps, although I believe Costa Rica doesn't have one and is surviving. The problem is that the US has such a huge army, it tempts presidents into using it all the time. It's amazing how Bush is forever telling us that America is a peace-loving country, yet it manages to find a reason to use its army every couple of years. Like fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. Except that al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq.