Epaminondas

You should have abused me. I have remarkably thick skin. Anyhow, at this point I'm just spamming the Net Neutrality thread and it's a moot point anyway. Net Neutrality is going to be repealed. Don't worry, though. It'll happen eventually because most people want it. Is there even anyone here other than me who thinks Net Neutrality is bad? I'm used to fighting losing battles, but I don't have to be a pest about it, so now's your time for payback!

I know that people will be for Net Neutrality anyway, but AT&T was probably the biggest company in the United States for years. It existed under the very same types of regulations and the same regulatory reasoning as what's proposed for Net Neutrality. It was a monopoly created under those same conditions. What the government was going to do was break up the company but I think they came to an agreement before the suit could be completed or filed or something. Here's the kicker, by basically kicking those companies free, the actual local companies, there was a boom in both competition and as a result innovation. This isn't speculative. We probably owe our access to such a breadth of wireless technology in terms of phones and communication to that very breakup. I'm not saying we should bend over and let big corporations have a whack at us. I'm simply stating a couple of things, once already stated and simply not refuted. 1. A lot of people (and I would contend the vast majority) never felt a single difference when Net Neutrality went into effect and, if they hadn't been told about it, wouldn't notice it's absence. The customers weren't being directly squeezed. The large corporations were, which is why some big company like Google is all for it. Yeah, everyone hates M$crosoft, but Google? They're the good guys. (sarcasm). 2. Net Neutrality has it's own problems. Aside from regulating the internet like a utility and putting a bureaucracy in charge of one more thing, the regulations can and will be used to promote companies and industries that best suit whichever party is in control. For all the left's bitching and moaning about big corporations, it's not like you don't see the Democrats taking advantage of crony capitalism. I can probably look forward to someone spamming about fifty pages of internet 'proof,' but the idea that repealing something that has been in effect for two years and some change will somehow destroy the internet is rampant idiocy. If nothing else, why not have congress do its job for once and pass actual laws instead? That way, if you think the internet stops working and you can't get online to complain about the games you still download quickly and review the tv shows you still stream, you can lobby your congressman and senator.

pong I just picked up the Dishonored Death of the Outsider bundle. It has Dishonored 2 in it also. Going to give that a whirl. I'll do Hitman Absolution eventually, though.

Finished INSIDE. I enjoyed the game immensely. However, I only started my serious run ~1100 yesterday, had time to do chores and go out to dinner with wife and friends, came back to finish, and it's all over. I don't regret it. Certainly as good as a movie and, at $20, it was worth the price, but the ending certainly left something to be desired. Nothing was explained at all. The platforming was good. A lot of fun and I'll probably play again to see what other stuff I can find, but I think they should make things make more sense. Even if the ending is bad, at least make it clear as to what it means or drop more breadcrumbs. Still, it was a great romp for cheap and I'll have to look into it again after I finish Dishonored 2.

In the Daud xpac, I used a stun mine on one of the witches and she fell into the water. I don't think the fall killed her, but she was floating face down in the drink when I noticed she was dead. Saving allows the player to see what's going on and that makes it easier to figure out the exact sequence. Blood Money is harder in that regard. Harder to inadvertently kill someone, but harder in trial and error when there's no save for the mission. My favorite (and most hated) Blood Money level is the river boat. Seven targets, no detection and only 'accidental' deaths. Ugh. Fun times, my brothers!

I've knocked people out and had them fall to theirs deaths or drown. I've gotten to be super careful about it. I guess I'll have to get Dishonored 2 after I finish INSIDE.

Well, brother, on that note of sarcasm, I completely agree. Rat bastards.

I've been an Angels fan forever. It was the Anaheim Angels when I became a fan but switched back to Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim). I understand the history, but Anaheim Angels just makes more sense since they are, indeed, in Anaheim and not even in LA county. Anyhow, I went to school with Troy Percival. In fact, I had several classes with him. Doubt he remembers me and, frankly, I don't really think that much about him, but he's done a lot of his alma mater, UCR. I do remember that he played baseball back in high school, but I think he was a catcher. I'm almost certain he was on the team as catcher, but I never paid much attention. The pitching thing didn't come until later, but he certainly proved to be formidable on the mound. I do find it hilarious that the manager was a Dodger. Anyhow, I was at the stadium last year when the Angels beat the Yankees. Damned Yankees. There were probably as many Yankees fans in attendance as Angels and there was a call on the last play so I got to see the Angels beat the Yanks twice in one night. First time was a practice win. heh heh heh We were with friends from Canada and my buddy walks over to a Yankee fan wearing a Babe Ruth shirt. I didn't know what he was doing, but the guy's a deacon. He certainly wasn't going to insult the Yankee fan, but I wasn't sure what was going on so I followed only to find out my buddy was talking up the virtues of Babe Ruth. lol If you only knew my friend the deacon, you'd understand. Gotta shake my head sometimes.

For someone who's more interested in policy, this sort of small ball stuff is really irritating. The reporter did apologize, but it shouldn't even be a discussion. Good God. https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/939619855191470081

I'm genuinely curious as to how many people have had their lives change in any significant way after Net Neutrality started. For myself, I do the exact same things more or less. I only have cable as an ISP, I don't have television from it. My pricing hasn't changed. My download and upload speeds aeem to be the same. I mean, they might be different, but I'm still buying games on Steam (I know I know, as evil as Net Neutrality is good!). I still get them installed just as quickly and the size of those games doesn't seem different. Netflix, Google Play, and Amazon Prime still stream at the same speeds and, frankly, unless I evolve to be able to watch the shows faster than they play, it wouldn't matter if they downloaded faster anyway. I honestly don't know, other than theoretical and hypothetical things what actually impacts me as a consumer. Maybe I'm lucky in that I haven't had problems with my internet and I had the same company for years that recently got bought out and, other than a few outages that irritated me, even that company seems to be just like the last one. So, tell me, other than it being a big cause engendered and promoted by special interests, what is my stake in this?

I even listened to dude's pitch at the end.

I played a little Hitman Absolution, but I switched to INSIDE. I like it. The only part that frustrated me so far is when I'm in a line with the zombified folks and have to play that mini-game of Simon Says. I prefer it when my guy can just run, dodging light zappers and fleeing dogs. Puzzles have been very simple so far. I guess the water one took me the most time to figure, but that was still only a couple of minutes. It did, however, show me what to do with the red hatch when I came to it in the next section. I haven't played a platform jumper in a long time. The last one was Deadlight and the main character in that *always* gave me the eebie jeebies. Kind of a depressing game. Not that INSIDE isn't a little on the dark, dreary, and depressing side, but at least the main character is more sympathetic.

I have several friends on the Net Neutrality bandwagon. In fact, we have fought bitterly. Well, they were bitter. I figure we're all screwed anyhow, so I was pretty sanguine. When I ask these friends, some of whom I've known since I was a child, how their lives were made better when this chef d'oeuvre was crafted and put into effect, they were dumbfounded. Apparently it had been in place for so long... a year and change at that time when they started bitching, that they couldn't answer straight away. Then, they stumbled over themselves trying to perform Heraclean feats of mental gymnastics. Net Neutrality wants to govern as a utility something that was free and so monumentally open before the rules went into place that the very video that complains about the loss of Net Neutrality sites conditions that pre-existed it. ...But, yeah, I'm sure giving the government the power to oversee the internet is what all of the internet pioneers envisioned when it grew to be the monolithic thing it is today. That was facetious, by the way.

this is how it will always work with me. If you give advice and it's good, you'll get credit. If you give advice and it's bad, I'll take blame. Worst thing that could happen is a full throated endorsement of something I don't like, in which case I'll chalk it up to different tastes and then maybe not use your input as much. At any rate, the game looks cool, so I was already leaning. You just gave me a stout push to get me there.

I have, and it's superb. Very moody and immersive, also quite surprising. The atmosphere as well as the sheer aesthetic design are absolutely superb. As a 2.5D puzzle game it's more on the easy side of things but it's quite nice all the same - to me it's the experience that is worth the most about it. In years of lurking, this message board has achieved legendary status for game advice. Bought and installing even as we speak. Seriously, this is my goto place before I purchase stuff.

Well, hell, now that you dangled it in front of me, I need to tell my wife because she will want to see the movie. I didn't even know it was out, but I saw on Amazon I can rent it for $5.

It's amazing how many empty boxes there are spread around the Hitman universe. I mean, if you'd invested in empty bin manufacturing, you'd be filthy stinking rich there. Kind of like crates in an RPG or vents in a shooter.

Lassiter is one of my favorite character from the series. First, he has the most poignant speech of the series when he talks to his estranged wife and signs the papers. Second, the line where he explains the reason the ether didn't knock him out was because he'd been exposing himself to it in order to develop resistance. If I remember right, Gus even doubted him and took a whiff and passed out. lol I was okayish with the show for much the same reason as Gromnir. Shawn acted so childish so unrelentingly that he just came across as a complete tool. However, the wife just luuuurved his sorry ass. She especially liked this one line where someone says, "Can I be frank" and doofus responds: "As long as I can be Dean and Gus can be Sammy."

Heh, I'm going to the Lifestream volunteers brunch in 10 minutes. I can see this going two ways. Either dry scrambled eggs in a tin tray over burners or, as I hope, some fine vittles. Never know at these things.

It's amazing hiw many of your games *almost* made it onto my list. It's like yours is my honorable mentions. Mordheim was *this close!*

I remember heroes of might and magic 2 allowed the player to choose a side and play it to the end which was cool. Then the rest did the alternating thing. I'm sure that the devs want the most efficient use of content and it undoubtedly sucks to design factions that players never use, but it does diminish player choice and consequence. Plus, some factions I just don't enjoy as much. Like those swamp barbarians in later games.

He does make an appearance of sorts, yeah. ...But, a different, truer answer is, no. It's about his namesake LA detective.

Response from a discussion in the Talking Heads thread. I voted for Trump. I didn't vote for him in the primary, but by the time we held ours it didn't matter. I see Trump as deeply flawed, but those flaws are personal and largely irrelevant. It's not important that he's largely an incontinent schmuck. While I don't honestly believe he's racist, his thought pattern is sufficiently inscrutable that you can never know. His language is imprecise. His tweeting is unrelenting. His manners are largely crude and demonstrate a narcissistic inclination. ...And I don't apologize or regret my decision. Trump isn't the problem. He's the result. Anyhow, his policy decisions are, by and large, okay by me. Now, back to regularly scheduled programming.

We've already kind of turned this into a political thread, but I'm going to post my response in the political thread since I don't want to contribute to derailing Valsuelm's thread more than I already have. I've avoided posted in the politics thread, but this is a trap of my own making and I guess it's time to be upfront about the issue. Meanwhile, the video was genius and, while I kind of took it to be a little anti-Trump, I mostly thought it was a funny little dig of the variety we had in days of relative halcyon. So, now that I've put myself in the middle of the discussion, I'd best hitch up my britches and own to a couple of things.

Let me be serious for a moment. I'll be your Dutch uncle with unsolicited advice that you can take or leave. I read the political thread quite a bit. I've been lurking around here for a long time and I read a lot of what people write. Sometimes I get irritated by what people post in the political thread. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes, I get food for thought. For example, Pidesco had a great post about gun culture in the United States recently. I don't agree with his conclusions, but I don't entirely dismiss them either. Thing is, I'm a spectator, and so I don't have a right to complain. You seem invested. You want to fight it out, but you've gotten knocked around and the prevailing views in the politics thread are certainly not akin to yours. So, give yourself time. Pick your battles. Hone your technique. Think about strategies to address some of the tactics used against you. ...And, after all that, realize that you're going to be knocked around a bit. You can't win if you don't play. That isn't an exhortation to play, SM117. I'm a huge coward and so I rarely play myself. I guess, worse than being a coward, I'm jaded, tired, and without much time. So I generally don't play. ...But this is about you, not me. Whatever I am, it's too late and my failings too deep to rectify. You, however, need to be more of the happy warrior. There are no permanent enemies. You could disagree with someone most strenuously today and still find solidarity with them the next. You could fight bitterly against someone this morning and celebrate the release of a new game this evening. One thing about most of these communities is that people generally don't harbor lasting genuine ill-will. At least from what I've seen reading over time. If you want to stay out of the fray for a while, do it. Get perspective and some inner peace. Then, stay away if that's what you want, but don't stay away for the wrong reasons. You never know who's reading and what impact your idea might have. Hell, you might never get credit for those ideas, but all the earth is a battle of ideas and if you're unwilling to stand up for your own, then you are a slave to someone else's. Anyhow, time to relinquish my inner Dutch uncle. I like it around here and my Dutch uncle tends to bring out the coward in me and I start running for the door.