alanschu

I just have to laugh at your "If it goes gold" comment, while also discussing Dragon Age, given your previous assertions that Dragon Age was vaporware I can support Bouncer's assertion too. I actually asked for an explanation and Derek French explained to me why. A lot of it was relating to the legal issues relating to publicly traded companies. Having said all that, it certainly explains SEGA's silence about the game.

I don't like forgetting. Which is probably why I have a good memory haha. It's not photographic by any means, in that I'll only remember something if I deem it memorable, but I do have an uncanny knack for remembering a lot of small details.

How is it?

Thanks jerk! I'm looking into Armed Assault at the moment. I'll probably d/l the demo when I get home from work.

Hehe I have had kids do that when I go on runs too

I know it's a big leap. I thought I was pretty transparent in stating that. I didn't just imply that I don't benefit from law enforcement services. I said that I never needed them to investigate a crime for me. As it turns out, that's actually true. If you felt I was implying that national healthcare would have been an idea and a right if medicine existed, then you failed miserably. Given the rest of your post, it does seem as though reading comprehension is something that you are sorely lacking. Look closely at the post I responded to. Someone (Guard Dog) mentioned the constitution for why some services are provided. That is, they are provided because they are explicitly stated to be provided in the constitution. Unfortunately, you decided to be stupid about it, when I asked the question. "You people?" That's rich. You are indeed thick though. I'm not cheering for Obama either for the record, but as previously demonstrated, you struggle with reading comprehension. It's not greed, nor entitlement. What you are doing though, is display gross arrogance by assuming you know what other people's motivations are. I don't look down on Gifted's opinions. I did state (along with other people) that his math was incorrect because, well, it was. At the same time, his math miscalculation also has him overestimating the cost, and hence, being even more against the idea. That's why it's brought up. I don't look down on Gifted (or anyone) for believing that a particular system of governance is what they prefer. You'll be hard pressed to find instances of me having anything more than debate with someone like Guard Dog (a strong Libertarian), sometimes against his point of view, sometimes in favour of his point of view. But hey, continue to make assumptions if that makes you feel better. Errr, I very much work to meet my own needs thank you very much. It's not like I neglected to pay the Alberta Healthcare Insurance premiums I needed to pay. It was nice that, when I was a student and not making much money, I qualified for subsidy with respect to my health care premiums. Now that I am out of school, I'm busting my ass making money to pay for my school related debt (Heck, I'm at work right now, and I usually chill on the forum while waiting for stuff to download or builds to update). I was having a hard time finding work right out of school, but at no point did I ask the government to strike my student loans (I did contact my credit card company and ask for payment, not interest, relief so that I could go a few months without making a payment on my credit card). Now I have a job, one that doesn't particularly pay well as it is entry level, but it's with a company that I most definitely do want to work with. Outside of the essentials such as food, shelter, and transportation expenses (gas, insurance, etc), my expenses are pretty much zero. I do this so that I can aggressively pay off my debt. I may buy the odd video game here or there, but I've pretty much suspended eating out, going out, and much of my social life for that matter. In part because I'm working 12 hour days and 8-16 hour weekends during crunch time, but also because I know I'm not really economically set up to spend much money on leisure activities at this time. The only significant amount of debt I have ever incurred is direct response to getting a post-secondary education. Aside from that, I typically live by the idea of "If I can't afford it right now, I probably don't really need it." I busted my ass to get a 3.7 GPA and my Bachelor of Science, Specialization in Computing Science, at the University of Alberta. Now that I'm out of school, my short-term goals are to stabilize my financial situation, and aggressively pay off all of my debt. But yeah, I have no grasp of responsibility and just like to freeload off the system, and am a selfish bastard simply because I don't think Universal Health Care is bad. It also means that I definitely want people to take care of me in all aspects of my life, and means I want to just sit around and leech off the system.

The thing about this is that people in both camps have this tendency of focusing on the bad. With state provided mechanisms: Yes you WILL get people that 'take advantage' of the system* - But you'll also have people that will benefit With more lassiez-faire mechanisms: You will get people that find themselves in **** situations due to **** luck - But you won't be providing free handouts to those that would take advantage *I find this line of thinking more applicable for things like welfare as opposed to health care though. Assuming Health Care doesn't provide you with superfluous and medically unnecessary services like plastic surgery, how exactly does one "take advantage" of the health care system? In terms of total cost, are "pointless" checkups that common of an occurrence? Even then, a pointless checkup isn't what's expensive, nor does it take a lot of time. But it's not like people are off accepting brain surgeries simply because the state is willing to foot the bill for it. I know my roommate (very capitalist) says he doesn't care for the public health care because in his mind people will waste money going for checkups for frivolous and unnecessary things, but I'm more divided about the issue because the few papers I have read, as well as the one (and only one) course I took about the sociology of health and illness, indicate that these things are not very expensive. However, I do know that catching an ailment as early as possible can drastically reduce the total cost required to treat the individual. One common (I don't know the validity) criticism of free market health care is that people have an incentive NOT to see doctors unless they are certain of an illness. However, in both instances, I think humanity's general stubbornness to not go see doctors for whatever stupid, non-financial, reason they can think of is more prevalent

Cool I'll keep my eye on it. There's supposed to be a demo coming soon.

I'll buy that Riccitiello had help selling the purchase to the rest of the board based on his previous experiences with BioWare. But anyways... Even I don't know what's going on in that Montreal Studio

I'll stick with pushups and sitsups (now that my muscles are done mutinying ) The cool thing about not working out for half a year is that I'll get to see all the gains from working out again

Wasn't Operation Flashpoint the game that had your accuracy get progressively worse if your game was cracked?

It's JAGS!!!!! Out from jail now

Note, when I do curls, I also due the extension. I'm just lazy and don't want to type that out all the time >.>

Aren't the rights of people arbitrary? Who decides what rights people do or do not have? If the constitution and Bill of Rights stated that someone has the right to something (anything, pick whatever you want), then doesn't that mean the responsibility of the government is to protect its citizens' rights?

Enjoyable polite society and anything one can consider 'their rights' within comes from rule and enforcement of law. You have most likely relied on it for every aspect of your life. Are we going to pretend their is not a gulf here being jumped in terms of necessity or benefit? It is just greed and entitlement being encouraged here, personal health is a personal responsibility. Breaking 100 is an achievement is not a right, further you don't get surguries and cancer meds because you had to eat McDonalds and smoke cigarettes everyday and so on... The world is not here to be your opium den people, imo this is nothing but greed and lazyness voting for freebies and pretending future generations won't be paying through crushing inflation and other disasters. Its hard to find nicer or more charming ways to make these points and the topic is unmotivating. The perspective of entitlement is so thick. How in any way does this answer my question? Breaking 100? Cancer meds? Surgeries and McDonald's? It absolutely is NOT just greed and entitlement, because many people support universal health care despite not being people that USE it. The perspective of entitlement may be thick to you, but maybe that's just because you're the one that's thick? At least Gifted understands that it's very much a social construct.

I know that strengthening the core is of exceptional priority. It's just hard to do while still being a lazy bastard. I conquered most of central Europe while curling

See, that's what I don't get. It's been stated in this thread that if EA had bought the package for less, Elevation/VG Holdings/whatever would have sued Riccietello. Yet, Electronic Arts shareholders and board of directors have no issues with "Yup, pay more than the company is worth so that you can make several million dollars, while the company we represent takes on additional risk AND has our own personal investment squandered." As you say, it's "one of the more questionable deals in video games history" yet no one in Electronic Arts (the money grubbing company, remember?) bothers to ensure that Riccietello is upholding his fiduciary duty as CEO of a billion dollar, public corporation? Does Riccietello have full autonomy for who he buys out and how much he buys them out for?

Actually yes. Especially when it's something that was particularly memorable, (positively or negatively).

Does CoD:MW have coop campaign? I'm jonesing for coop fun! Llyranor, more info on this "Armed Assault 2" because I am too lazy to look it up haha. And yes, the 35 km draw distance is riiiiiiidiculous. But yeah, I'll be getting this for PC if I get it.

Are you kidding? That's all going into Napoleon As a matter of cat, I was kidding EDIT: Wasn't there a ****load of threads earlier saying that it was potential product suicide to go up against the competition that AP would be facing, and to release the game at a quieter time may be better for sales?

Thanks theslug, I actually have taken courses on physical fitness, so I'm actually not clueless about this. I have no interest at this time in making my own set of workout equipment out of household products. If I had a chin-up bar I'd do those instead, but I don't. Nor do I have the desire to install one. I know how my psyche works, and starting out with easy exercises is how I always get back into working out again. Having said that, my education in resistance training was only a small subset of my sports medicine courses, and it WAS 10 years ago. Why exactly are bicep curls "useless" and "not practical." I have my thoughts on this, but I'm curious where the discussion comes from. I did a quick google search for it, and found that at this moment, there's a real focus and concentration on compound exercises, but the only real support I have seen for people saying that curls are pointless is because there's no typical use of that particular body motion.

Sure, but you can't know until later, which involves predicting the future. It doesn't change the fact that it's current value is what people are willing to pay for it. The only way that someone, at this point, could say that BioWare was overvalued by Electronic Arts, is because they (for whatever reason) value BioWare at less. But it's still an estimate at this juncture. All this means is that valuation changes. It doesn't mean that something is "over" or "under" valued. I'd certainly wager that no one on this board is qualified to say that Electronic Arts overvalued BioWare. Even if they had the business acumen to make the assessment, doesn't mean they put in any of the time properly evaluating the value of a company like BioWare. You can make your assumption (i.e. guess) based on whatever reason (like supporting an argument), but the fact remains that something is valued at precisely what people are willing to pay. Unless people are insinuating the evil, money grubbing, Electronic Arts has suddenly become altruistic and decided to pay more than they felt BioWare was actually worth.

hi, welcome to earth. If things cannot be overvalued, why do values inflate, bubble, then burst? like the housing market. WITHOUT the thing having been overvalued? oh wait. things CAN be overvalued. i get what you were trying to say, but you forgot about some things. like valuation, and how it can be done poorly by people and markets. Does that mean that things can be overvalued, or that valuation is not static? I'm inclined to agree with Volourn's assessment, because he basically just summed up supply and demand. when preparing to buy a company lots of things happen. and many many people examine the worth of the company in different ways. some of these are estimates based on the impact the purchase is presumed (or hoped) to have on competitors or the market etc. if people do a crap job in making these valuations they may think that a company is worth more than it actually will earn them. (in not just $ either, you could be buying goodwill or customer relations, or key personnel who could quit any day of the week etc too) But it's all still just estimates. You're making predictions, and valuing the company based on that. All this means is that the valuation of a company is different, since it is impossible to know whether the valuation is correct until after the fact. Spell it out for me then. Preferably each of the 5 steps. If 3 independent firms evaluated BioWare at the same cost as Electronic Arts, would all of them be wrong? It's easy to look back in the future and go "hey you were wrong."

The Constitution requires the federal government to secure the republic and defend the borders. It does not require (and I would make the argument does not permit) the federal government from administrating healthcare, nor compelling the citizens to participate in its largesse. That seems like a bit of a copout answer though. All you have done is said that it's acceptable because our constitution said so. This sounds harsher than I mean it to, but do you think you would you support a UHC system if it had been written into the constitution all those years ago? It's a genuine question and I know it's hard to answer "honestly" because you grew up, and are the person you are, in part because of your belief in the constitution. At its literal level though, I have a hard time perceiving the base acts any differently. The breakdown I'm about to show is intended to be simplistic, but I don't think I'm really missing anything particularly crucial. Let me know if I am. Government takes money from you --------> Government funds defense (at all levels: police, military, etc) Government takes money from you --------> Government funds health care Now, I personally have never relied on my police service to investigate a crime for me. There are a lot of people that do though. Is it not analogous to the health care criticisms to say that they are benefiting off my dollar, whereas the system could just as easily be set up in a way that people pay the police themselves to investigate crimes? To me it seems quite parallel. Help clear it up for me. With the exception of the constitution being explicit (I'm assuming so, I am not really all that familiar with the US constitution).

Well, UHC seems cheaper than the US system, but the US system seems pretty fugged up to me. I couldn't state that UHC is best and most efficient for the United States, especially based on its culture, but right now I am pretty comfortable saying that the health care system, in its entirety, of the United States needs to be overhauled somehow.