alanschu

I'd hardly consider the original game to be anything more than a PG-13 affair as well.

Cloned Gat is amusing. The narrative of the "mad scientist fanboi" is also kind of chuckleworthy. That DLC had awesome music too!

On some level it brings it under scrutiny. I do find, in my own experiences, there can be institutional levels of racism that maybe aren't even intentionally malevolent, but if you have human beings making decisions, people will make assumptions. Just as an anecdote, a friend of mine applied for some Visa or something. She's Filipino, and was informed that she was approved and that she'd be receiving the card (or whatever) through the mail. In talking with the 3 other people that were also there for some Visas, who were white, she learned that they had all received their cards right then and there. For *some* reason, there was an extra impetus to do things strictly by the book in her case, which is mostly just bizarre. (The people she was with were actually shocked, and went back and mentioned that it was inconsistent and not really fair. Although my friend was grateful, the experience did leave her feeling a bit embarrassed. Coming back to the justice system, that prisons and jails, and people involved in the Criminal Justice System in general, are significantly over represented, it may mean that there is some level of systemic discrimination. This doesn't mean people being bad human beings and going "LOL, you're black so I will toss you in prison." But more of the subtle nature, where people play into stereotypes. For instance, New York City's Stop and Search Law shows that, on average, more white people are found with weapons than racial minorities. This doesn't so much mean that white people actually carry more weapons, but probably means that racial minorities are more likely to be assessed as being likely to be carrying a weapon. While only the super shady white guys are actually checked. That said, however, simply because there IS a racial component to a case, doesn't mean that it plays a factor. The Alexander case being juxtaposed (and misrepresented) to the Zimmerman case accents it somewhat, but it's difficult to prove that had Martin been white, Zimmerman would have received a different verdict.

I don't think this is really true actually. I believe Aristotle showed that the world was round in the Classical era. It wasn't so much that people felt the Earth was flat and that's why Columbus was crazy. It was more that they didn't believe a trip to India would really be feasible.

So even if a warning should would successfully deter them, you feel it's best to kill the target individual. You probably could have just said "yes" to my question. Never mind that circumstances apply. A person is walking aggressively towards you from 20m away with a weapon threatening your life and you're cornered (or live in Flordia) with a firearm. I would expect any person that is not "bad at handling a gun" to effectively be able to fire a warning shot without "taking his attention off the threat" (especially since both armed forces and police service employ warning shots themselves) and without endangering himself in the process. It's different if the person is on top of you beating the tar out of you... I wouldn't have expected someone like Zimmerman to fire a warning shot in his situation. Further, I think your expectation of someone in a situation where they feel lethal force may be required executing the most rational judgment is awfully high expectations. Nevermind a situation where if someone DOES shoot to kill, but just happens to miss, yet effectively deters the assailaint from pursuing lethal action and causing them to withdraw. In the world of ravenshrike, this person is more culpable because they did not kill a human being and is more deserving of reprimand. Because that's the position you have been conveying to me. If the attitude of "if a warning shot works, then the situation wasn't serious enough" is a bit more explict way of saying "Kill the other human being, because you'll be less likely to be punished." Better to kill someone when a warning shot could have been safely done to yourself and saved a life, because once you kill the person it's your word against no one's.

So the legal system actually does encourage people to actually shoot other humans in that situation then? (serious question) Shooting other people is illegal as well. There can be justifications and mitigation for it though, as evidenced in the Zimmerman trial. Harping on this makes it sound like it's okay to shoot another person in self defense, but not to fire a warning shot in the same situation. Or, in other words, that the legal system implicitly encourages one to actually potentially kill another human being rather than the alternative. Because that's the way it looks. Saying "Firing a warning shot is illegal" doesn't do much since firing a fatal shot is also illegal. You can dispute whether self-defense was applicable (a position I actually lean towards now, as I have read more information), but if it was, is firing a warning shot still illegal, while a fatal shot not? But you're right, it's an excellent example of how minimum sentencing is often absurd.

Civ5, CK2 co-op, and LOL. Also, acronyms.

Haha I loved Jones: Life in the Fast Lane. Is there a new Police Quest?

Well, she claims it was a warning shot. But still, does point of some flaws in that law and the idea of mandatory sentencing. It's tragic because she was offered a 3 year pleabargin and didn't take it because she didn't feel she did anything wrong. It's also interesting because the husband, in his disposition, states that she shot into the air one time. In the 911 call, however, he said "she shot at us." It seems to me that the jurors (and the prosecution) are holding that up as being a stronger likelihood of the events. The jury only took 15 minutes to come to the guilty verdict, however, and given the mandatory sentencing requirements, she must serve 20 years due to it being a crime that involved a gun. I can understand this not allowing "Stand Your Ground" from holding up. I read a different link that stated that the large garage door was inoperable, and as such she was stuck with the only option of returning to the house (since the gun was in her car). The messed up part is still that the husband validated the story in his deposition, but then later said he lied to protect his wife.

I believe Stand Your Ground allows the use of force to defend yourself without consideration for attempting to escape the situation first. So you don't need to prove you had no other alternative.

The juxtaposition of the case where a woman apparently gets 20 years in jail for intentionally firing a warning shot rather than shooting to kill. Kill someone, probably get away fine as per Enoch's post. Spare their life, get 20 years! Woo!

Eh, I speak my mind. IIRC I gave him the gears over the police officer arresting his daughters boyfriend stuff a few years back too, but I don't have any ill will against him. It can be tough to disassociate, especially on the internet, but if I am giving him the gears it's because of the point/position being made, not because I think he's a bad person or anything like that.

As an agonistic, I do not believe that science and divine work need to be exclusive. Without wishing to specify your beliefs, I think you mean 'agnostic'. Gigantic keyboard failure. Although antagonistic works too Hurlshot!

Did he do Steam? Or is there something else I'm not thinking of?

I actually enjoyed Moo3 as well. Although it's not without its faults.

As an agonistic, I do not believe that science and divine work need to be exclusive. The Big Bang Theory initially had a lot of resistance, because the whole idea of the Universe just popping into existence for unknown reasons smelled too much of divine intervention. There's no reason why a divine power has not (arbitrarily or not) established the natural rules of our universe. As such, I never like the idea that many religious people are so against common scientific ideas, such as evolution, since the existence of evolution is not proof that a divine power doesn't exist. I never understood why people couldn't believe that evolution was the act of a divine power, especially if they consider it so unlikely. I'd be okay with the fact that it is. I just don't expect to ever know for certain and as such don't really see the point in spending much time wondering about it. It could be true, it might not be true. Does it matter? Not really. I did smile, however, that the Bem paper you linked passed a peer review process to get published

I do not, and I would definitely need more than your word alone to convince me otherwise. Okay let me position this differently with you, I consider you an intelligent person who has a good understanding of the world you live in and an excellent ability to rationalize the things around you. But what would happen to your perspective of the world if I could tell you right now on these forums what you had for breakfast and what shirt you are wearing. Is this something you would want to know as surely this would turn on its head many preconceived ideas you have as a person and ultimately our views on life are what define us. Is this something you could mentally deal with? It would be like going down the rabbit hole..... It would create cognitive dissonance, depending on the level of specificity (if you were to just say "no shirt" or "t-shirt" and "eggs" I could consider it a lucky guess). I would certainly be shocked.

Given that she straight up states that she feels bitter, I'm not at all surprised by the notion that she feels bitter. While feeling bitter may cause her to exaggerate and spread misinformation, does this mean that someone cannot still be justified in feeling bitter? I was laid off from one of my first jobs, at a power plant, because the plant manager ran one of the boilers too long and we were a few million dollars over budget. I felt bitter about that for sure.

I do not, and I would definitely need more than your word alone to convince me otherwise.

The problem with any sort of divine influence is that it's likely not going to be reproducable in any form, and as such people will have a tendency to believe what they want to believe since the supposition cannot really be tested, unless she IS consistently correct (and I am skeptical that that would be the case).

To be honest, while I noticed the tattoos I didn't really give them much of a second thought until you (and others) decided to focus so incessantly on them. At some point, in my opinion, the problem becomes less and less hers. My question for you is "Why do you care?" followed by "Why does someone doing something like this bother you?" when it's effectively a stranger and someone that you have literally no obligation to do anything towards. What you are doing, although I don't suspect with any sort of overtly malevolent intent, is shifted the conversation away from what the author is saying and focusing more on what the author looks like. To draw an analogue, and I understand it's a bit different because tattoos are voluntary, but in my eyes it's not that far removed from focusing more on the colour of someone's skin than is really necessary. You find her decision to place tattoos on her a decision that makes her less attractive. Which is fine. They are probably at a point of having enough that I consider them less appealing as well. We're allowed to feel people are or are not attractive. What that has to do, however, with her topic is something that is somewhat lost on me. Coupling it with "Also I hope I don't die when my daughter is 15 because that might cause her to go get terrible tattoos that distract from her natural beauty" then comes across as something exceptionally antagonistic and downright disrespectful. If getting tattoos helps her deal with the loss of a parent in a reasonably healthy way (from a mental health standpoint). I lost my brother when I was 13, and effectively didn't really get over it until I was 20. If getting some tattoos had helped in some way, I'd be pissed at my parents for judging me for doing so.

Seemed appropriate to put this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5krT1tlj2E8 Love that end to end rush against the North Stars at 3:00!

I find this interesting because the fact that I'm the one driving the action increases my emotional investment a lot.

I'm not sure it makes me superior to be a parent, but I do get emotional over a ton of stuff that never would have made me bat an eye before kids. So in that respect, a father/daughter hook is going to have more of an emotional impact on me now than it did 10 years ago. Although that really just happens in books, movies, and TV. I haven't had any real touching moments in a video game. But I haven't played most of these example games. What was your thoughts on The Walking Dead?

Credit to Valve for giving up the hardware (Curious what all motivated the decision). Gives the impression that Valve is abandoning the hardware. Reading your article now, but it certainly comes across as a bit more scathing. Upon reading this, it doesn't really surprise me that some level of power brokerage still ends up happening. I wouldn't be surprised if this has affected things like Half-Life development, because working on stuff like DOTA 2, TF2, and Steam are the things that are getting all the attention (since, especially for the latter, that's where a lot of the $$$$ comes in, I'm assuming). Will continue reading!