alanschu

What exactly are you referring to when you say "Quantum Theory" Quantum theory includes things like electromagnetic radiation, and using spectra to determine the composition of things like stars and whatnot. Are you suggesting that stuff like this is "iffy," or is there something else that you're referring to? The term "quantum theory" is a bit nebulous and encompasses a lot of things.

What exactly are you referring to when you say "quantum theory?" Do you mean quantum mechanics? Quantum field theory?

It's still around. Just need to look for it in different ways (I don't know why....) In the future, go to your personal account, find topics.

Re: Oil sands. The province I live in his heavily financed by oilsands development. When the price of oil goes down, development and extraction (especially new development) goes down because it's cheaper to do so (and it lowers supply to help bring the price back up again). I have several friends that have worked in the industry up at Fort McMurray where most of Alberta's oil sands development is.

Incorrect. Law's are not anymore proven than theories (they are usually equivalent, excepting that theories usually try to attempt to describe causal relationships, whereas Laws are just summaries of repeated observations). Newton's Laws are actually less accurate than the Theory of Relativity. They just work well enough for most of our cases, that we can ignore relativistic elements of motion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law In summary, however, Laws are as accurate as theories, in that they continue to be relevant until they are proven incorrect. Which is what science is most interest in (trying to prove things wrong, since it's easier to do so). Another, perhaps more readable explanation can be found here (which further summarizes that science community does not consider anything to be truly "provable."): http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm

We aim to specialize in being the destroyer of lives and worlds. Personally, I figure we might as well earn Worst Company in America!

Backed with $25

I do hold the government more culpable when decisions are made through ignorance/corruption that harm innocent people. Unless we're talking about a "greater good" here (and life imprisonment vs. death penalty is not one of those situations where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few), the government should not be doing things that goes off an kills innocent people. If a civilian is reckless with a firearm and puts people at risk, I get upset. If a police officer or soldier is reckless with a firearm and puts people at risk, I get angry. I mean, for who's sake are we executing people anyways. There was a case in Florida where a man was murdered, and his daughter seriously injured, by an assailant. The man had made it known that if he was ever murdered, he would not want his murderer to have the death penalty. His daughter (after undergoing surgery to repair her injuries) attempted to uphold her father's wishes, but ran into resistance from the prosecution (and later, even the judge). Unfortunately Florida law prevented her from stating that she did not want the defendant executed. After two errors by the prosecution overturned the death sentence, she was brought back in as the primary witness for the prosecution. She had asked (and the defendant willing to accept) the prosecution to not push for the death penalty, but the prosecution denied, meaning she had to go back to trial and restate her experiences of being attacked and watching her father get murdered (sounds awesome! This is justice, right?). Frustrated with not being able to state that she did not want the defendant executed, her own lawyer suggested that, when asked what her occupation was, she state she has to jobs - her regular job on top of going around the country working to end the death penalty. The prosecution was livid and objected, and the judge threatened to throw her in jail in contempt as a result, but at least she now got her wishes as the jury decided to sentence life without parole. On top of this, there hasn't been research that shows that execution has long term benefits for the victim's loved ones, though there is increasingly more anecdotal evidence that it actually has the opposite effect. There's actually a group, Murder Victims for Human Rights that consists of those that have suffered at the hands of murderers, and further suffer because of the death penalty. You're the one getting pissy that evidently I haven't suffered enough to truly understand what victims go through. I'm sure you've a long history of family members and other loved ones being murdered, however, so your opinion on the subject is superior to mine! Cheers mate. I actually had a poster on this board PM me that I had actually convinced him to rethink his thoughts on the death penalty. That poster is even still reasonably active on these boards, though I'll let them speak up if they so wish.

So essentially you're admitting that you're thoughts on this are emotionally charged and not rational? Don't even begin to assume what I have or have not been through in my life, thank you very much.

Oh please. Gabe Newell of Valve (who doesn't even run a public company) has definitely stated the exact same thing (and I'm dubious to the claim that we have said such a thing as well) - and Gabe is pretty much deified. Large parts of BioWare's customers don't choose female players, but we still add them in. Large parts of our players don't even finish our games for whatever reason, but we don't look to make it a 9 hour critpath (the median length of time someone typically plays one of our games). The overwhelming amount don't pick Renegade, but I can't see BioWare making an exclusively linear game. Given our justification for things like romances (heterosexual and now even homosexual) is explicitly because such things are considered optional content, I'm skeptical towards any sort of claim that we ever said we choose to not do optional content because people don't like to replay our games. Baloney. Everyone has to look at every feature, whether it be Obsidian, BioWare, or inXile, and go "is it worth our time to put this in?" Nothing is free, whether in account of direct actual costs, and even moreso in terms of opportunity cost. A horrible, loveless way to think about our game because we take a look at how people play our games and try to provide them with content that they want? As Brian Fargo joyfully talks up how much he loves "collaborating with the Wasteland forums" for the types of things to add into the game, I guess we can concede that you feel he's being equally soulless and loveless in the way he thinks about his game. BioWare hasn't made a transition to cinematic games simply because some number said "Hey man you'll get more money doing this!" They do it because a lot of the people wanted to. I know there are cindesigners that love love love love doing what they do and making well done cinematics is right up their alley. I see the passion and enthusiasm they put forth into creating them. By YOUR margin. THAT's the point that people so rarely get. You think that because BioWare doesn't make the games that YOU want to play, that obviously we're selling out and NOT making the games that we want to make. It's a complete utter fabrication of mental gymnastics concocted in your own head because BioWare no longer makes games that specifically cater to you, and that makes you sad. You can see it everywhere too. Multiplayer was so clearly added because some EA suit said "add multiplayer." Not because multiplayer has been a serious consideration in every BioWare game ever (including a last minute PvP mode cut from the original Baldur's Gate). We (since I like them too) don't consider Obsidian games to be great because of some nebulous, universal measure of quality. We like them because they provide quality for what we want. There's thousands upon thousands of people that think Obsidian's games are crap. Just as there's thousands upon thousands that think BioWare's games are utter failures. Just as there's those that don't even like Valve's games. I love a game like Alpha Protocol despite it having serious quality concerns. Or a game like NWN2 even, or even KOTOR 2. Many gave up on Obsidian due to stability issues with New Vegas. Many went "I like this better than Fallout 3" because they either weren't affected by stability issues, or the game provided them something more. The only thing I agree upon with your post is the implication that a smaller team has a greater chance of having all people being unified in their vision than on a team of 100+ people. Most people at BioWare love what they do, despite what you may think. Virtually any one of us could go and do something else in a similar field, and make much more money while having more stable working hours as a result. Ah, I see. So it's only legit if people are willing to sacrifice pretty much their entire lives so that you can enjoy a video game, right? I mean, how dare a company try to be accommodating to an employee that is about to have a child (or has a family in general). I can work late (and often do) because I like what I do, and I am currently single and able to do so. Because someone has a family and they don't want him working 16 hour days for a year straight though, I mean, that's why gaming is getting worse. Please. I guess you aren't a supporter of EA Spouse's blog though.

Not killing a person is not the same as defending the blatantly guilty. Wanting to kill someone is simply an act of vindictiveness that serves no additional purpose over life imprisonment aside from satiating that vindictive desire. It's nothing more than a "u mad bro" and wanting to exercise it because in your mind, it's some sort of ultimate punishment. If I could be guaranteed that corruption and incompetence would never interfere, I'd be more open to the death penalty. Except that I'd still have reservations because it doesn't accomplish much in terms of exercising justice of life imprisonment, and I'd need to know more information about how people behave prior to arrest if they know that they have committed a capital crime (i.e. are they more willing to perform additional harm in order to save their own lives and the like). I don't have that sort of information, however.

The Law must apply to all. There will still be situations where an innocent person is executed, because the line for what it means to be "clear cut" will always be challenged. In large part because death penalty cases become higher profile cases, which means that people make their careers off of pushing for them and winning those cases. Yes it is. No matter what logical deductions you may come up with (they can both just appeal and appeal), the costs associated with the death penalty are higher. Both in terms of cost of representation (people with cheaper defense lawyers are more likely to be executed - so you're placing a financial burden on someone in order to not die). In Tennessee, the costs of a death penalty trial is 48% higher than one where life imprisonment is actively sought. The median cost of a death penalty trial in Kansas is $1.26 million, as opposed to $740k. Average trial duration is 34 days instead of 9. The largest part of the overall cost comes during pretrial and during the trial. The investigation costs for death-sentence cases were about 3 times greater than for non-death cases. The trial costs for death cases were about 16 times greater than for non-death cases ($508,000 for death case; $32,000 for non-death case). The appeal costs for death cases were 21 times greater. The costs of carrying out (i.e. incarceration and/or execution) a death sentence were about half the costs of carrying out a non-death sentence in a comparable case. (This is what most people logically see. They go "Huh, killing a man should be much cheaper" and this is the aspect that it is) Trials involving a death sentence averaged 34 days, including jury selection; non-death trials averaged about 9 days. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty Death Penalty cases are more expensive straight up front. This only tangentially covers the systemic issues that already exist (people with more money have a great chance [per capita] of avoiding harsher sentencing), and doesn't even begin to cover situations with how pleas are determined and how people can be coerced into pleading guilty for a crime because pleading not guilty and losing may lead to one's own death. Further, your analysis overlooks the differences in terms of the ability to appeal based upon whether or not someone is serving life imprisonment versus the death penalty.

Torment.

HAHA. I remember posting a video showing that it was possible to get past the werewolf. And the "FALLOUT IN NAME ONLY" posts, oh man. I probably more often than not found him aggravating than otherwise, but after a while I just sort of got used to his online persona. Was definitely saddened by his passing. Cheers for stopping by Valashar! EDIT: Dug up my Bloodlines post for posterity. Ahhh, good times. I think I'm only a 7 or 8 on the jerk scale now, compared to my previous 9-10 rating.

Lara is certainly braver than I...

Well that's awfully demanding of you!!! What do you want, a pleasant user experience!? It's not a true RPG if you're not fighting the controls!

That's pretty speedy!

You're lying to yourself if you don't think that Obsidian's concerns lie with profit as well. Feargus himself admitted to going after "slam dunks" in his time at Black Isle because ultimately, it meant he can keep his staff, whom he cares about, gainfully employed.

IIRC, tab cycles targets which can help speed target selection up. I don't remember any huge issues with target selection, but it's been probably a year since I last played it.

It does mean that there's a lot of work to be done, but it also typically means "the only person that can do that particular work is the PC, regardless of time." Lots of quests means that, while I was out doing 20 other different things that took who knows how long, some other NPC just let his giant rat problem in the cellar of his tavern go unchecked for that entire duration of time? It may work from a gameplay perspective, and may be the best solution for an RPG, but it doesn't do much to make the world seem alive as far as I'm concerned. It's one of those "video gamey" moments that explicitly reminds me that I'm in a video game, and as such I can exploit the rules of the game around certain video game conventions.

I dislike the death penalty because the justice system is run by fallible human beings. Compounding this concern is the susceptibility of a human being actually being corrupt (which is far worse than mere incompetence). People have made careers out of high profile death penalty cases, and knowing it can be dubious on its legitimacy is concerning. As a result, you must have failsafes in places to grant due process to these individuals. The end result is what most supporters of the death penalty don't fully realize: it is cheaper to keep someone in prison for life than it is to execute them. Unfortunately, you can't just grab someone and expedite his execution. Unless you wish to become a police state, because you WILL get situations where people are wrongfully executed. Given it's the justice system, I'd rather have some crazy psychos not be executed than any innocent people executed.

I already told you this once before: there's stupid people on the internet and they're going to have elitist problems because, well, there's stupid people out there that don't have a clue. Or you'll just get some people that act all smug such as: .... Well it's certainly hard to feel sorry for you for being so picked on if you're just going to reciprocate said smugness.... The first time you complain about "woe is me, I'm a F2P guy that people look down on" is fine, but if it's a common song for you and bothers you that much, move on. Don't put yourself in a place where you find yourself frustrated and aggravated. No game is worth that.

Yeah, I didn't quote it, but Morgoth had referenced the article earlier. Obsidian is probably my favourite developer, and I'm a big fan of Star Wars, so I hope they are able to make a successful pitch. With EA changing management (and presumably shifting focus in some ways, in light of reputation issues), it's pretty much a coin toss as far as I'm concerned.

Good luck sir!

I see the boreholes and solar collectors/mirrors and the like to be similar to later game Civ tile improvements as well, so I don't know if that was necessarily unique to SMAC. Though the elevation aspect WAS, and it was interesting because I remember the setting had the concept of planetary winds. While static, it meant that one side of hills would get more precipitation than the opposite side, which was interesting!