Walsingham

Cool. Thanks for spotting that, Wombat.

IF raptors in missiles, why not insects in micromissiles? Have a gun which fires little plasma packets guided by a mosquito intelligence. 'Glowworm'

Where was it that hippies put flowers in the gun barrels of the national guard? That could be the project name. EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_power Apparently it would be either GINSBERG or BERKELEY

Presentation went well. It wasn't deliberate but I went in for massive over-commitment, then when they turned that down I said "Oh well, at least you're going to do XYZ" In genuine naive cold-fuddled misunderstanding. They agreed, I think mainly because I sounded a bit sad and deflated as if it were mere scraps. Only just realised I got a good result. Note to self: contract bad, obvious head cold before all major presentations in future. Also, drinking lemsip is good for sympathy. And giving you precious seconds when asked difficult questions.

You've also got the K9000 robogun. That uses a brain. Maybe the nukes have raptor brains inside them. Glinting yellow-eyed eagle souls screaming for ash and blood. OK. I really need to check my temperature. I think this fever's getting to me.

Tried to work out how to trollback just one driver, but that failed. Fever making me too irritable. Went for complete system restore to yesterday savepoint. Sound is back. Still the most appalling clusterfunt. Given how ubiquitous realtek cards are Realtek's support is nothing short of pathetic. I get better support from my _free_ apps. Not going realtek again if I can help it.

Thanks for the quick turnaround, Gorgo. I'll give the rollback a try.

I've been struggling with finding updated drivers for my realtek sound card. I don't knwow if it's just me, but Realtek appear to have adopted the attitude that only a moron would buy a Realtek card and that if I'm ever going to learn from my mistake then I must be forced to wade through hundreds of pages of indecipherable drivel. Much of it in cantonese. http://www.realtek.com/downloads/ No auto-identify card. No 'Heres my card. What driver do I need' I just installed the 'hottest driver' which is mentioned by third parties as complaint with my card. And now no sound is issuing forth at all.

I've got *checks watch* four and a half hours to work out how I'm going to do this Big Presentation this afternoon. I came down with a cold over the weekend and when I speak it sounds like a very shy badger trying to tear open a bag of crips.

Really?

Yes, kidnapping is an issue. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING comes close to drugs in terms of supporting a state within a state, terror, corruption so on and so forth. My own analysis is that widespread kidnapping is as much about efficently utilising all the force and fear generated to dominate the drug markets. It is in harmony with and feeds from the lack of faith in official law and order generated by drug oriented organised crime. As you say, all that free capital already in drug networks will have to go somewhere. A lot of it is going to shift to things like kidnapping, prostitution, and attempts to dominate the legal drug markets. Really smart money will probably go into financial fraud, botnets and so on. However, it's wishful thinking to believe that organised crime isn't already moving into these avenues of revenue generation. It's just happening slower.

Frankly, I wonder if that's true. Prohibition doesn't stop people getting drugs. But we have to pretend to care, so let's sacrifice a few hundred thousand wogs every year. Mind you, I do also wonder if in some countries the war of drugs isn't just a rebranding of some sort of war on the poor. I doubt the violence would disappear simply because the revenue disappeared. But fundamentally it couldn't continue at the same level, simply because guns and bullets and sicarios cost money.

Why? WHY?! Because, that's why. ~~ Other examples?

Understood. My next question arises from my fairly whimsical reading around the topic in recent years. A lot of work has been done on how fast people realise the rules of a game have been changed, without being told. The reason I bring this up is because generally difficulty curves exist on a basis of decreasing room for error. You just apply normal behaviours faster and with more diligent attention to detail. But real difficulty comes from appreciating the raw foundation principles at work in a problem space, and then adapting when learned behaviours are no longer appropriate. Of course, precisely BECAUSE that would be hard for most people to get their heads around, it might not be commercially justified, but I thought it was worth mentioning. If there were to be a game medium which could cope with some effort in this area it would probably be combat. The rules of winning in most combats are pretty simple. Application of range, or firepower, for example. High difficulty would subvert those rules, either by adjusting combat system variables or by altering the environment (cramped spaces, fog, and so forth). A crude example of this would be Lonesome Road. Normally I take a 'fists of fury' approach, but at high difficulty that just got me killed. I had to learn and adapt, with a 'fighting defence' approach, safe havens of mines in a level, ammunition and equipment caches, creative use of companion etc. For me, highly enjoyable.

Sorry, you've lost me. What risks?

You could get Manny Vargas in your group, with some adroit stealthing, and some lockpicking with enough zero point insta-death for a handful of muties. BUt you'd need to know exactly where he was. I think on balance I like Manny best of all the characters. His backstory is the best, and his interactions the most amusing. Althugh having said that, in pure battlewinning terms Boone is utterly unbeatable.

Short video extract (Should work outside UK, apologies in advance if not) Caracas is just one city affected by the War on Drugs. I know we've had this debate before, but I don't see it going away. Most of those reading this forum are living in open democracies. The War is being prosecuted in our names. I think that makes it worth talking about. Yet compared with our discussions about the War on Terror the casualties eclipse it by many factorials.

Something's been bugging me for days about the nuclear missiles in the new DLC Lonesome Road. I just worked out what it was. We all know that in the Fallout universe they never developed integrated circuits. However, you need integrated circuits to make guided missiles work properly. In fact it was arguably guided missiles which drove the serious development OF integrated circuits. The problem is: if those nukes aren't being controlled by integrated circuits (don't exist) and they aren't being controlled by valve tubes etc (too big), then what the hell is guiding them? The answer, horrifyingly enough, must be brains. Probably human brains as in the Robobrain series of security robots. Spoilers:

For a bit of tranquility I'm listening to acollection of pieces sung by the contralto Marian Anderson. Personally I find opera singers hard to tell apart, but her choice of works is compelling in itself.

I'l have to check that out...

Wow, Idon't know what to say, Enoch. I guess the only thing I can say is that I have a lot of respect for your brains and sense of humour. I'm sure what you can do, you will do right.

Yes. I've not done online dating, but I can see what you mean, having enough female friends to recognise the symptoms. *chuckles* reminds me of something Robin Williams said. "Women want Mr Right. Men want Miss Right Now."

I'm convinced that any job application which goes through an HR department of any kind is like playing roulette. When have you EVER heard of a good HR department? The only reason they exist is to guard against the confused mess that is employment law. I hate them, I hate their reason for being, and if possible I would chase them with tigers and firecrackers and peasants with cymbals.

If burqahs are to protect women, how come they don't have any spikes?

Julian Assange hypocritical asshat? Irony's a bit predictable, but still made me gut laugh.