Walsingham

Caught this games blog just now. Raises some -admittedly sleepy - questions about why some successful games use a father-daughter relationship to 'activate' engagement with the characters, and why they seem to work better than romantic ones. Also if there is a dynamic caused by more gamers being female than ever. Personally I think they work in the abstract Bioshock sense (as she says), but Fallout 3's dad was one of the least compelling ones I ever encountered. I hated that guy for being a weird freak, and trying to run my life. Which now I think about it is quite realistic.

Full disclosure: until she committed suicide I deliberately ignored the story as just adding fuel to the fire. You may know more. Anyone confirm facts?

Because she lost her job, having handed out confidential information in a non-secure fashion. I should say as her boss I'd have been inclined to cut her slack. But it is a seriously disciplinary offence whoever the patient is.

I think it's particularly interesting that having risenon a revolutionary wave, they are now being dashed beneath. Life in opposition was positively balmy compared to the storm they are weathering now.

Well, yes. Unfortunately the natural supply of targets doesn't match the desire to generate laughs. Hence lots of unfunny phone pranks targeting people at Dominos and so on. I don't even begin to see what's funny about targeting a nurse. I suppose the misconception was that the Royal family are up for being taken down a peg or two. But that's just broken logic.

Because deflating truly pompous people is a worthy endeavour. Mithering nursing staff not so much.

Could you re-do Blackadder Goes Forth, reusing the trenches from the Capital Wasteland? And with NCR versus the Legion?

I agree that the death was pretty unexpected. But doing something like that which is quite predictably about trying to con privileged information out of someone... that's going to get them fired. Getting people fired isn't ****ing funny.

Update - from Stratfor: Kuwait will give Egypt a $4 billion aid package, including a $2 billion central bank deposit, a $1 billion grant and $1 billion in oil products, KUNA reported July 10. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged a combined $8 billion in financial aid July 9. I guess that answers my earlierquestion about who they could get money from apart from the IMF.

What were you thinking of doing? Or is that secret?

Ah. I have heard of bogans. They are like sunburned orcs, correct?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23243308 "A DJ behind a royal prank call linked to the death of a UK nurse has sued her employer, saying it failed to provide a safe workplace, local media say." Oh well done. I thought she was a vapid cretin before. Now I know she is a self-obsessed vapid cretin. She does something irresponsible and then sues her employer for how she behaved? WTF?

Thinking about that magazine more charitably: If the spring has gone in the magazine, and you can't replace it then what you have is a metal box that is the right shape for your webbing, but which can't feed rounds into your gun. Using it to store objects passively - even bullets - isn't mental. The only thing wrong with it is that you might grab the wrong magazine when you want a working one. The only thing I'd do differently, based on my military experience is that I'd use it for storing sachets of instant coffee and sugar.

You're wrong, it creates the feeling you're about to drown, thats such a strong feeling that you will forget where you are and who tortures you, you're panicking, only fighting for air and you think you're dying. And you don't need any practice at all to waterboard someone, maybe thats why its so widely used nowadays. Pour water over someones covered face until that person runs out of oxygen, make a short break, repeat. Try it out. I just think it's a waste of water, just pouring into someone's face to simulate drowning when you can actually drown them in a tub. Its' always the same with you. You can't be bothered with waterboarding, you don't want to go out to Nandos, you want to home-build a dirty bomb rather than order one in from Pakistan... You used to be so much fun.

Erm... it's a funny idea so don't take this the wrong way.... But... If you combine the logical problem space of a tactical shooter and smush it into sex then... you just have a kind of angry monkey rape simulator. It would probably go down very well with highly sexually competitive species like ducks, but other than that.

Anonymous: I don't want you to think like me. Because then I wouldn't be able to do things without consulting you. We are anonymous. We are a self-appointed clique. We are never wrong. We never apologise.

Zero Dark Thirty makes the case that although they knew some bad dude was in the building they couldn't prove it was OBL <sic>, and they were understandably nervous about the incursion. Makes sense to me. That mission had a lot of moving parts, so to speak.

I'd have to say chaotic good. I fight evil, but occasionally accuse innocent bystanders of having a face like an arse.

Carriers In the heart of the rain forest, something deadly is stirring. Older than life itself, it feeds on the living, silently, mercilessly, with a speed and fatality matched only by the terror of its gruesome symptoms. Patrick Lynch's Carriers captures this fear, and presents a world where the war between mankind and nature makes any victory for science temporary at best. When a plague-like outbreak strikes Indonesia and a team of American biological-warfare experts are brought in to discover its source, they find only corpses and riddles without answers - until Holly Becker arrives. She's come to the jungle to find her two young daughters, likely victims of the terrible plague, and in her quest may lie the secret to the terror that threatens to engulf them all

I know that bloody quote and I refuse to look it up.

I assume you are talking about some sort of interval training? Found this British Army get fit guide. http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/Fitnes_LowRes.pdf Give it a read. They are past masters at getting pasty freaks like me to a state of slightly less pasty freakishness. You'll be fine. Aside: F*** me, but this hot spell looks like it's here to stay! Loving it.

I mentioned that I found a reference to waterboarding from around 1616 in the book Nathaniel's Nutmeg? Dutch did it to English sailors. Caused an uproar. The thought doesn't thrill me, I must say. Strange kudos to you for giving it a go, though. For next Alqventure, I recommend you next try being strafed by apache helicopters.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that evil takes project management.

No idea what you mean but it sounds funny I was about to say "It's a koan, like the taste of a rainbow." And then I remembered skittles! Damn you, commercialism!

You're right. We will need some kind of Obsidian drinking game.