Maedhros

I understand The Dark Tower film is supposed to be a sequel to the book series, but man that didn't capture the feeling of the books at all. Hopefully it's just the trailer being bad.

Had a very decent pizza with chorizo and Kraftkar (A Norwegian blue cheese that's ridiculously good and hard to get).

If a game isn't on Steam, or isn't made by Blizzard I'll probably avoid it. I also have no interest in newer Bioware-games, the Battlefield & Call of Duty series, and isometric rpgs.

I thought Patrick Stewart gave it some much needed warmth. Without him it would've been too much.

La La Land Near perfect, what a joy to watch.

I read volume 2 of My Struggle by Knausgård recently (A Norwegian author who lived in Sweden and wrote about it), and he says pretty much the same. He calls Swedes "cyclops" - and that they can't handle ambiguity and that some people see things differently. Edit: Just to be clear, not saying I necessarily agree

Manchester by the Sea Casey Affleck delivers as usual. A perfect "sunday night" type of film that you have to be in a special mood to really appreciate (luckily I was). For me, one of the best films of 2016.

Not too optimistic about Warcraft IV, with Rob Pardo and so many of their best designers gone. I'd still play WC3 if they made a proper new patch with an updated battle.net though. If the RTS genre is gonna be popular again,I feel like they gotta incorporate some of the automated things from mobas. For example have the buildings automatically spawn units every minute, or something like that. With the focus being more on controlling the army (and the hero, if it's warcraft we're talking about), and selecting the right army type, rather than basebuilding and unit production. I tried playing SC2, but it just feels like work rather than fun in how effective you have to be with the macro stuff.

People's gender identity can differ from their assigned sex. In this case we're probably dealing with someone with mental issues, but there are lots of people who have felt like they were born in the wrong body, and haven't been able to live good lives until they "look" like they feel. To me (probably because I'm Scandinavian!) it's just plain insensitive to refer to a trans person as the sex he/she was born into rather than the one he/she identifies with.

Portugal is nice and a bit overlooked when it comes to travelling in Europe. Nice weather, cheap food, good wine...I've only been to Lisbon, but I've heard Porto is really nice too.

well, buy Linken, problem solved, Bloodseeker is for sure not OP hero Not worth spending that much gold just to counter Bloodseeker tbh. Just carry tps, and tp home if he uses the ult on you. Bloodseeker ultimate spell is good vs new/bad players, terrible vs experienced players. A bloodseeker with forcestaff isn't gonna trouble the opponents carry players much.

Firewatch for me. Very underwhelming year in gaming compared to last year.

Before Icefrog Dota was fun, but also a mess riddled with bugs and imbalanced heroes. There was no metagame to speak of. He made Dota into a competetive masterpiece. Balance tweaking a game with that many unique heroes/spells/items is way harder than Bartimaeus makes it sound. It's pretty ridiculous to suggest that you could've done the same job.

Dota hasn't changed a lot because it's a very good game. Why change something that works? They add new heroes, modes and items every now and then though. The update yesterday was HUGE. If you play HotS because of bat**** heroes, well Dota has its fair share of those. Meepo, Techies, Invoker, Rubick, Tinker, Timbersaw to name a few - all with very unique abilities. There are millions of hero/item/lane setup combinations/strategies that makes the game never feel outdated or boring. There is no skill-ceiling, and pro gamers keep getting better at it. There is so much room for personal improvement, innovation and strategy, more so than in actual RTS games (and I say this as a WC3/BW veteran). I know I sound like a fanboy (I guess I am), but I truly believe Icefrog is the greatest "competetive gaming" developer there is.

Been playing Dota since patch 6.30 or so. I truly believe it's the most beautiful teamgame there is. The possibilities to make great plays are endless, more so than in any sport maybe. Can't wait for the new patch!

I think my favorite gaming moment is probably playing Morrowind for the first time. Just wandering around in the world and discovering stuff - artifacts, books, cool ruins with insanely dangerous creatures. Hadn't played anything like it at the time. More recently, there have been tons of great moments when playing Crusader Kings 2. Starting as a count in France, marrying into a dukedom in Italy, becoming King of Italy, later breeding a line of Genius Emperors through carefully electing the best possible candidates among my sons. Man I love that game.

Yeah, other countries have a lot to learn from Finland and their trust-based approach. Teachers are trusted to be innovative, and there is little to no standardized testing. You learn to learn, not to score well on tests. From what I've read, educators are running the school system - not politicians or buisness people who sadly think competition is the best way of getting better schools. You forgot one thing. Every time teachers from other countries visit finnish classrooms they are surprised by one thing in peculiar: The students are silent, obedient and follow the instructions of the teacher. Such manners do not come from the blue, but rather from home. It takes a village to raise a child properly and all that. That's a fair point, but maybe students in other countries would tend to be more silent and obedient (or even better, participating) if their teacher had more autonomy and creative freedom like they do in Finland? Haven't watched it in ages, but I think S4 of the Wire illustrates this in a good way. Teachers usually know best what their students need.

Yeah, other countries have a lot to learn from Finland and their trust-based approach. Teachers are trusted to be innovative, and there is little to no standardized testing. You learn to learn, not to score well on tests. From what I've read, educators are running the school system - not politicians or buisness people who sadly think competition is the best way of getting better schools.

Did you see their email exchange? Chomsky definitely "won" that exchange, even though they were pretty much just talking past each other. https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse

Liking what I'm hearing about Tulsi Gabbard. Would send a pretty strong message of co-operation if Trump was to find a place for her in his administration.

I think you nailed how I feel about 'Stardust', the first film I saw by Matthew Vaughn. I think it's the best "adventure fantasy" film since Princess Bride. You can tell the actors are really enjoying themselves.

Would've been really interesting to see what would've happened if Sanders had joined Stein as their candidate, as she wanted. Do we know approximately how many of Sanders-supporters voted for Hillary/Trump? It's a trend in the world that young people flock to "enviromental friendly parties" so to speak. You can credit Stein with a decent performance, but I think they would've done even better with a more serious candidate, like someone who doesn't think wi-fi signals are dangerous to children. I can see them taking way more votes from the Democrats in the next election (unless the democrats elect a relatively progressive candidate).

"They truly believe that it is feminists, globalists, anti-racism activists, liberals who are the "true fascists" in the world." Sums up Breitbart's comments section pretty nicely.

Swedes intolerable? You joking right ? Yeah, we have a friendly rivalry. They are not as awesome as danes though. It's kind of funny, even though the Scandinavian countries are very similar - I still see danes as laid back and fun, and swedes as extreme in their opinions, overly proud, etc. Stereotypess and all that jazz.