Walsingham

I'm curious how many of the people here who have judged this guy to be deficient have a) experienced clinical depression b) had someone they care about have clinical depression c) been seriously in the **** Frankly, if you show me someone who kills themselves and someone who has no compassion for someone who wants to kill themselves, I'll tell you who I'd rather stayed alive.

You're kind of looking at this the wrong way. You're thinking too much about the weapon and not about the target. Wound ballistics are called that for a reason.

I think you're over-reacting, taks. I have several friends who were only able to break their depression through the splint of drugs. The drugs are only dangerous if you think they are the whole stroy.

I was so impressed I became personally stuck to my fridge.

*throws cow right back at him* You know you're having a good birthday when people are throwing cows. You can still restore my former glory, Wals. Jump to the Tardis and convince Guy Fawkes that in order to destroy the Parliament, all he needs to do is graffiti my name all over it. Since the date is the same, it will all pan out. I'm not sure I'll be let back in the Tardis after that unfortunate incident with the broccoli curry.

Not really. At least, most of the time mods are chosen because they are antisocial enough to be on here anyways.

'Bum' ROFLMAO

Yes. Or play Grand Theft Auto, on the police missions.

*throws cow right back at him* You know you're having a good birthday when people are throwing cows.

Dibs OPbsidian should use that face as the face of a bad guy in their next game.

I can see why you'd think that, but foreign policy wise, the seeds for the collapse of the UN, and the rise of Islamic extremism... Clinton's watch.

Er...

I didn't realise we'd found a liberal radelephant.

Dalton should have been the best Bond, but the script for LTK was fething awful.

You chaps need to spend more time exploring the dark netherworld of bad movies. To get an idea, rent the worst movie you can find in blockbuster. Watch the trailers. Notice how many of those films you've never even heard of? Go find a copy and watch THEIR trailers. That's bad films.

When everyone's having a great time, it's a great job. When things go wrong, and we crack heads and things get better, it's a great job. When things go wrong, we crack heads, and things get worse, it's ****.

I saw Goths in South Africa. Healthy clean-limbed and smiling children trying desparately to conceal their tans behind white make-up, running off in rivers due to all the black clothing. I always admire tenacity, but they were just being stupid.

You can get kidnap insurance for people, so I'm sure you can for property. You make an interesting point about insurance fraud. The real fun would happen where someone wants rid of an old crude carrier and decides to sink the bastard rather than pay for it to be scrapped.

Yeah, thanks Ms Caliban. There goes my breakfast.

I think people sometimes get over-fixated on on the difference between the AKM and western rifles that can be sensitive. But I'd suggest it's like unfavourably comparing your girlfriend's robustness with that of a forty year old streetwalker. Firstly they're made for different jobs. Secondly being amde for different jobs has all kinds of issues, and means you're probably better off with your girlfriend. She's less likely to spit during thanksgiving dinner. Reluctantly abandoning my analogy, first production models of the M-16 and SA80 were ****.They had all kinds of problems. Some were silly, like the ****ing handle falling off the '80. These have been ironed out in the updates. Some are simply a question of design options, not mistakes. Mechanical tolerances (the space you leave between working parts) can be small or big. They can't be both. SA80 chose small tolerances, leading to accuracy because it doesn't shake around. AKM chose big, leading to the ability to keep a sandwich tucked inside the receiver. The point is that for anyone with the self-discipline to care for their tools, it's better to have a slightly finicky tool with better performance. Like mkreku said, he went home and he cleaned the bastard. But I'm sure he has the self-discipline to have cleaned it on exercise. Anyone who can't do that is either a guerrilla, living ina swamp, or a gang-member high on drugs. Neither group get much sympathy from me. And I've wandered completely away fromm the point, somehow.

It's just a theory, but I'm beginning to wonder if patching is inevitable. 1. A patch fixes problems. 2. Some problems come from slackness. 3. Some problems come from emergent behaviour of the multiple systems interacting 4. As games strive to be more innovative the risk of emergent problems increases We therefore have a choice, as consumers. We can accept a ten minute wait for our game, or we can punish a company who relies on patching. I suggest that the effect of punishing people who patch will be very grave. These companies cannot be expected to troubleshoot every aspect of a game before release due to the crippling cost of 99% error testing. So they will simply have to reduce innovative features. Then we all end up playing EA games and nothing else.

I'm not right now, but it sounds like a plan.

Whoah whoah whoah. I'm starting to get a different picture of this film now. It sounds as if teh producers *shock horror* are allowing Bond to change, and to have one film where he isn't a stand up comedian. The character has been betrayed and he wants revenge, and he isn't feeling particularly funny. Why not? Bond isn't a big mac with fries! A Bond film doesn't have to be just some minor variation on a 'winning' formula. I'm surprised at you, all perfectly smart chaps, reacting in this way. I shall have to hie myself off to the cinema...

I hear you, Hilde. But so long as Somalia is such a lawless mess, there will just be more of the buggers. Moreover, how long will it be before other poor bastards start getting similar ideas elsewhere? I'm concerned we may see the same explosion in ship hijacking that we've seen in corporate and private kidnapping on land. I personally believe the only way to cope is to make paying ransoms a criminal offence. Although I know that could make it even worse, by discouraging the reporting of incidents. Does anyone know more about this topic? Enoch or Pop seem suspiciously well informed sometimes.

Yeah, I would have liked a more S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-like system where you really had to choose what weapons you were going to use and ration your ammunition accordingly. I agree. Stalker had that aspect down well.