Walsingham

Hat + icecubes = instawin.

Of course I can't produce numbers. I just said I was relying on anecdotal data. You are the one claiming an authority on the subject. YOU back it up.

IP cost, dev cost, advertising cost Might need a stronger IP, to be brutally honest.

I was annoyed by the foster father chap. As in even my good characters turned evil after he'd tried explaiing why they should be good. Now I think about it, I wonder if there's something wider about that?

I can't believe that none of you heartless bastards thought to interrupt me with a flurry of messages to tell me I can buy the DLC now. ~ ROFL My Fallout NV addicted housemate/lodger actually woke up in the night and couldn't sleep. He doesn't know yet, but it seems his sudden awakening coincided almost precisely with the new DLC going on sale.

But, but... that would require the princesses understand that the world doesn't revolve around them?! You're right, sir. I might just as well try to realuign the Earth's magnetic field using a tuning fork and some polyester trousers. Aside: How fantastic is it that there's almost 0% probability of people ever being required to wear polyester trousers ever again. That rocks! The world _is_ getting better.

Grom: You're damn right I know the US legal system through books and TV.... and conducting an assload of interviews with criminals and law enforcement back in the nineties. I'm interested in crime, not justice generally speaking. But I tell you what: when you only comment on things you have direct experience of, I'll do the same. Speaking of which, since you are obvously a lawyer or student of law, perhaps you'd have some figures or facts to back up your claim that rich defendants don't exhiibit the behaviours I related?

Dear Women, Is there any chance you could realise and appreciate the connection between someone doing something nice and you reacting positively to it? On second thoughts don't. I just realised I can make a fortune by manufacturing and selling my patented love-cure: the walsausage. Regards, Walsingham Q. Wildebeeste

Worst thing about this thread - and there are many - is that I already dropped my monocle earlier.

Can't think of anything helpful to say, Nightshape. Condolences. If you feel like talking about it - which I don't expect you will - then fire away.

Sure, and the principle of innocent until proven guilty necessarily transfers the weight of proof onto the prosecution. Which necessarily tends towards acquittal. But are you seriously claiming that the US legal system does not accord spectacular favours to rich clients? In terms of the freeform nature of presentations (rich clients use multimedia with I believe a disproportionate impact on juries), number of appeals (necessarily going to favour a private client), and the general support of 'raw' data in the form of DNA and wiretapping*. Most importantly a rich client will spin out a case for years if possible, angling for mistrils and every other sort of shenanigan. Official prosecutors must surely weigh such extravagances heavily. You don't call a multi-million dollar case with the same carefree regard for law and order as busting a misdemeanour felon for assault. *This naturally favours the state with poor clients.

Watching the parliamentary panel grill the Murdochs. I didn't have high hopes, but they are simply scuttling about from point to point. MP: "When did you meet Mr Marracec <sic>?" Rupert: "I don't know a Mr Marracec" MP: "He worked for the company for 25 years."

Well, I don't think I shall need to use it again. Unless you chaps have a suggestion on how the shape should be improved.

I believe the article (or an article I've read) mentioned that the deceased was a known abuser of drugs and alcohol. Nevertheless I find it rather unconvincing that he'd kill himself right at the moment when he was making money as one of the 'good guys'. And before anyone says anything I'd have an easier time insiting on innocent til proven guilty if Murdoch hadn't been peddling filthy innuendo his entire career and getting rich off it. It's not as if US courts have a good track record of convicting rich people. Look at OJ and Jackson. Murdoch's fortune would hire literally a battalion of lawyers.

Mother of God. That really is too ****ing far. Too ****ing far by half. Note he claimed to the Guardian that he had evidence or would give evidence that complicity in the hacking went right to the top. I still think Cameron will bottle it.

Thanks GD, they were lucky and seemed to get mostly my wife's genes While it's kind of soothing from the "at least I know I'm funding my own kid" point of view, there really isn't anything more tragic than a girl who looks just like her father. Maybe a girl who looks just like her father but was born with her intestines outside of her abdomen? What if they were coiled around her ears, like Princess Leia? ~ I have entered a nirvana like state where I play Empire Total War and work at the same time. It's freaking genius. I love it. I have my second PC set, so I do the battles real time, and get some reading or writing, or make some phonecalls while Johnny Turk or Indian manoeuvres on the great plain in front of me, and the tiny ranks of sepoys and cannoneers sweat, and the cicadas chirrup. I swear im'm getting twice as much actually done. (I'm obviously not, and I'll calm down in a while) I have also evolved a superior form of the classic 'square' for fighting cavalry or massed hordes. Th eproblem being of course that cannons in the 'wall' of the square are open gateways to whirling dervishes etc. So '=' and ']' is a line infantry company, '\' and '/' are the cannons, and '#' is infantry in square or light infantry under cover. Assume Johnny Hannover is coming from up the page. ===== ==== [ \ / ] [ ====== ] [ ] / \ # # The idea being that the guns fire across the face of the infantry line, and vice versa. A key point being that on the absolute face of the square ther are no exposed guns. Obviously th rear is the edge of the map, which is why it's a bit pokey in historical terms. Counter-battery work is by rocving cavalry, or by simply choosing ground well or digging in. EDIT: ROFL. My ascii attempt failed hard.

I worshiped a guy called Dave when I was university, so I could get out of the Christian Union trying to make me a member. "Our God is almighty!" "Well, I really think this is a discussion you should be having with Dave. He's just over there at the bar. Go ask him if it's OK for me to switch."

I respect your opinion enough to know you don't mean it this way. But a variant of your argument is what got us into this mess in the first place. The Press Must Get the Truth has been a mantra applied to an insane degree. We don't accept the police invading our privacy without some kind of elected oversight, and extremely strict rules (usually). Even IF you take the view that the fourth estate are our protectors and servants they must still be bound by our values and standards? Just saying...

*monocle falls out*

Everyone around here is ill with a kind of flu at the moment. According to my authoritative source: the newsagent.

Love it. ~~~~~~ My housemate, who I introduced to Fallout New Vegas as his first ever computer game, has developed a kind of retard OCD. He is literally - I kid you not one iota - going around the wasteland tidying up. Literally every single worthless piece of tat. I suspect he has worms in his brain.

I presume you're gtting a giddy adolescent thrill out of all this pointless cynical grandstanding? I only ask because it'd be a shame to let it go to waste... Do you have anything sensible to say on this? How it could be avoided in future? How we could improve out exit plan? How Ghaddafi could be removed without the RAF? Are ties obligatory when meeting oil-rich nutcases? Should I have chips for tea? Anything?

China Mieville? Urgh. Perdido Street Station was completely forgettable I even forgot to mention it here. Bustling super-city with mixed cultures and technologies and whatnot? Hurrah! Complete lack of richness, characters or plot? Hurroo...

And you are engaging in a simple logical fallacy. The existence of climate change is utterly, completely, and gloriously irrelevant to the question of whether renewable energy can be the way forward. In fact accepting climate change as a fact makes the situation ten times worse because it imposes a gate on when improvements can occur. I don't want to be rude about all this. But it's a damn shame to see so much effort going totally to waste. And BTW, simply asserting that 'science will make it all OK' is a lunatic basis for policy making. If we're playing that game I say we just put everything we've got into cold fusion. Happy days. End of problem.