SteveThaiBinh

By some accounts - there's evidence and opinion on both sides of this. I have a colleague who's a refugee from Mugabe's Zimbabwe, and he says you could always see this coming, even during the supposedly 'good' periods. I've also read pieces that claim the true extent of Mugabe's brutality even in the early years is still to be fully uncovered. Telegraph opinion piece

As Walsingham has already said, it isn't effective. People under torture don't tell the truth, they tell whatever they think will end the torture soonest. The information you get is useless. The Bush administration approved the use of torture because it wanted to persuade first itself, then the electorate, that it was taking tough action 'to protect the American people'. It was always more about appearance than about substance.

It looks as if Mugabe just might be on his way out. There's nothing reliable yet, but lots of rumours of contacts between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC about getting him to flee the country. There can't really be much doubt he's lost the election, but the MDC have played the publicity much more skillfully this time. Zimbabwe really has been an astonishing story of a relatively wealthy, stable country brought to its knees by one man's arrogance. It's also been a disgraceful performance on the part of South Africa's ruling ANC, propping Mugabe up diplomatically while the country fell apart. So, will he stay or will he go? Is Mugabe a hero for winning Zimbabwe's independence or a villain for squandering its wealth? What will happen next?

I think any one of them could potentially be torture, depending on how it was applied. Some (like waterboarding) must surely always be torture. I don't see what it is people think torture will accomplish that regular interrogation techniques can't. People who interrogate for a living are very good at what they do. It smacks of laziness and posturing to me.

I think a discussion of the appropriacy of torture and other 'mature' content in Alpha Protocol is fine here. If we're heading off into a wider discussion on the nature and actions of the CIA, could you guys please start a thread on that over in the Way-Off Topic forum?

The Daily Telegraph agrees with you, Sand:

I'm enjoying having all the animals around - my druid has a wolf, Elanee has her badger, and Qara has her whatever that is (it doesn't seem to do anything, but it keeps out of the way). The wolf in particular is proving more useful in combat than I expected. I always switched off animal companions before because I got caught by the transitioning bug in Act II once and lost an entire day's worth of game.

And the fact that they could never run as fast as you could, so you were forever having to stop and wait for them to catch up.

Perhaps it's because I haven't heard or read anything about it. All I have is the memories of the old movies and no particular wish to have those disturbed by seeing a pensionable Harrison Ford playing an action hero. But if the dialogue is smart and they don't give Ford a romantic interest in her twenties (Entrapment! ) I might come round.

I'm not optimistic. Harrison Ford is too old and Shia LaBeouf is creepy.

The planet or the bar?

Useful for slicing a very large cake.

Perhaps. General education in the UK does seem to be in rather a sorry state, if you believe what you read in the newspapers. But adverts do have an impact, otherwise why would private companies spend so much money on them? If they can distill the message and deliver it properly, it should take hold. The government asked for it. We have our share of anti-game scaremongers, and they get newspaper column inches, so I guess the government wanted to be seen to be doing something. Whether this will satisfy them... This I don't know. I'd heard of her, but not being resident in the UK now, I've never seen her programme and don't know so much about her. Someone else on the boards might know more.

You're certainly not alone. The author of the report, Tanya Byron, is one of these TV parenting experts that are around so much these days, and they seem to believe that parents can be educated to become better parents. The report was praised in some media for its 'can-do' attitude. I'd like to think she's right, and I broadly approve of education, but we'll have to wait and see if it has any effect. I only hope the government's information adverts aren't as lame as some of the ones I remember from my childhood.

I've never had that, and I played a lot on Warlord before making the switch to Noble. You should buy a lottery ticket.

Parents aren't doing so well, it seems, and don't feel in control. The government, the media and Youtube can all help to give parents and children information so that children can develop safely and parents can parent effectively, so why shouldn't they? I think it was a generally reasonable report, though as always, the devil will be in the details. One of the recommendations was that computers and consoles be in family rooms, not in bedrooms, so parents can monitor more easily, but apparently this has been recommended for a long time but parents either don't know or choose to ignore it. Bombarding parents with information and advice sounds like a good idea to me, even if it does have a slight scent of nanny-state about it.

I imagine the government will just ask Youtube, and Youtube will agree rather than face the wrath of parents and the Daily Mail. Technologically, it shouldn't be too hard, right? For example, I think they want to have the Youtube homepage feature a prominent link to a child-friendly "How to Surf the Internet Safely" guide. So Youtube detects where users are connecting from, and those in the UK get a slightly modified page with the link. Easy as pie.

Well, FireFox was decidedly unimpressed by that. Don't you have it in .pdf format?

Rise of the Argonauts has been sort of on my radar for a little while. It ought to be an interesting setting with great storytelling potential, but there's so little information about the gameplay, in particular what their take on 'action' in 'action RPG' is. Still, here's a preview.

Atari has posted an explanation for the delays on Mysteries of Westgate on the NWN2 forums here. It seems to confirm that the release is tied to the NWN2 1.13 update.

Thread closed for getting off-topic.

An important report on how to protect children from harm when using the internet and video games was released today. It was prepared for the British Government by Dr. Tanya Byron, a TV celebrity psychologist. Surprisingly perhaps, it seems quite balanced and reasonable, putting most of the reponsibility on parents to parent properly. Key recommendations: 1. Simplify the ratings system for games, mainly using the BBFC age ratings similar to film classification. 2. Legally enforce age ratings, and punish retailers who sell to underage kids. 3. Focus internet efforts on getting the most popular sites like Youtube to follow strict codes of conduct, rather than trying to police the entire internet. 4. Bombard parents with information about how internet security and the game ratings systems work. The government is saying it will largely do what she wants. Most people seem to be welcoming the report, but it

That's quite enough of that! Mass Effect had vehicles (I hear - as I haven't played it myself), but I also heard they weren't very good. Car/motorbike chases are a staple of the spy genre, so there's a good chance I suppose.

How strange. How much CCTV coverage is there in the area? Is it likely their faces will have been caught on camera?

Glad that's sorted.