Rostere

The US' part of the global economy was the highest somewhere around 1950, so I'd say their military capability (since industry = military in modern wars) relative to the rest of the world has made the same progress (regress?). But really, who cares about singling out the US anyway when we adopt a global perspective. A more interesting estimate would be the size of NATO nations' economy in percentage of that of the entire world. The only reason people still think the US as powerful as it was before is because even if the world has become more multipolar, it has not necessarily become more bipolar (not referencing the psychological term). There is no single enemy or alliance or enemies significant enough to challenge NATO (you might regard this as a coincidence, or as a victory of diplomacy ).

I don't think the different actors are as interested in war today compared to 1914 for a lot of reasons, if indeed a "world war" is even possible with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, out of the many current international issues Syria is by far the MOST likely to escalate and drive the world as close as it can to a world war.

A few remarks: Consider carefully the candidates who were not allowed to run - all three significant banned candidates were very popular, well-known and with an already existent following. The choice of these reflects in my opinion a wish for an obedient president, in a way they were "cutting the grass" leaving only the unestablished candidates to run. This could reflect how the Ayatollah has had increasingly much trouble with Ahmadinejad, who in an alternate universe without crushing international sanctions would easily have enough legitimacy among the Iranian people to overshadow the theocratic aspect of the state. The winner of the election is a cleric himself. Depending on other government factors, his power might end up quite limited - if he is interested at all in fulfilling his promises to the public. He may in the end become known as "the Iranian Obama". For the theocratic elite, there is not much intrinsic value to antagonizing "the West". Historically, the US has had a very bad reputation because of what they did to Iran in the 70s, so it has been an easy thing to rally the people around. But things change and eventually old grievances are forgotten. If it would be in the economic interest of Iran, and thus be necessary to preserve the theocratic regime of the Ayatollah, I'm sure they would have no problem with approaching the West. Again, we see that preservation of the Islamic state is the pattern to follow regarding the highest leadership's decisions. So, the interesting "other side" to this election is the part of the Iranian society which not is anti-US for merely pragmatic reasons (which are now starting to be forgotten, anyway...): the Revolutionary Guard, who really follow some sort of revanchist ideology in this matter, where the US is an enemy no matter what the current situation look like. It is important to note here that Ahmadinejad had close ties with this organization, as had another candidate who lost in the election. In the previous election, the Basij militia (which is part of the RG) had a significant role in the violence against protesters. Technically the RG are under the command of the Ayatollah, but if they were to think that the clerical leadership betrays their core tenets... then who knows what would happen. Apparently Ahmadinejad could at least argue with him, I remain doubtful however to the possibility that they might actually resort to violence.

In past games such as BG most parts of the soundtrack have been slightly anachronistic "modern classical" music, with the exception of for example the tavern music, which I think added a lot of atmosphere to the game. In addition to this the tavern tunes were also really catchy. From what I've heard in the PE pitch video I have really high expectations on the music in the game. So my question are: First, how does PE compare with historical periods with regards to music? Is music mostly sacral or is there a rich tradition of profane music (in the different cultures)? Does music have an important place at all in them? Second, how much will the in-game music be inspired by real historical music? I'm perfectly fine with modern music as well, but it would be interesting to hear instruments such as the cembalo which sadly gets little room in modern RPG music. Other instruments of past time periods to be inspired by include the hurdy-gurdy and the keyed fiddle. I definitely would like something like this as part of a soundtrack. Some examples of European profane music from around the 16th century: But of course there are other parts of the world to take inspiration from as well, and also sacral music which I don't know much about myself. What do you think?

OK, so appartently it is indeed the S-300PMU-2 system: http://missilethreat.com/russian-s-300-missiles-unlikely-to-reach-syria-for-months/ Another interesting angle is that Syria could potentially shoot down civilian aircraft over Israel.

It's also interesting that Russia has chosen to deploy S-300 AA to Syria. This might very well prove to be a double-edged sword. If it becomes known that Russia guarantees AA support, but the IAF can continue to raid Syria freely, then the market appeal of Russian AA wil decrease. For a case study, compare the Lebanon War (the most recent one). Russian AA was humiliatingly defeated by the IAF virtually without resistance. Obviously, this was a setback both financially and for Russia's international credibility as a military power, even if the air defense systems were a bit outdated they should at least have been able to make a dent. Here's the wikipedia article on the S-300 system. The question of the exact model supplied to Syria appears crucial. We know Syria has these, which were introduced in 2003, so it's not unreasonable to assume Russia will supply Syria with equally modern AA. We apparently know it's not S-400 (if we can trust the sources on this; there is some confusion since the S-400 was initially named as a submodel of the S-300), so it then appears it's most likely S-300PMU-2 or possibly, but more unlikely, S-300VM which is very similar but meant for use by a mobile army rather than as a static air defense. So not opting to send S-400 can also be viewed as an interesting decision by Russia. Maybe this is because this entire business has been a Syrian initiative, or because Russia is afraid that it won't perform well enough against the IAF, which would be a catastrophe for future sales. On the other hand, if they knew S-400 would be a strong, viable defense it could be stupid to see S-300 being blown to smithereens, which will hinder Russian arms sales even if it's not their newest system. As a side note, the IAF is (officially) set to receieve American F-35s and a load of side gear in 2015 (as part of a rather fishy deal where Israel got 180% of the value of the deal in offset contracts - when the entire thing is paid through military aid by American taxpayers to begin with!). From Israel's side, the hurry to get that equipment is motivated by the will to be able to put Iran under pressure - but that's another discussion. If the IAF could somehow get a hold of F-35s earlier than 2015 (in analogy to what Syria got with the S-300s), it is my educated guess that they would be able to trump the S-300s - not surprising, since the F-35 and it's equipment was designed with this AA system in mind. What Russia would do if such a situation seemed likely? That would be very interesting to know...

Buying the custom fans, heat sinks and chassis is one of my favourite parts of building a new PC.

I really appreciate the existence of RPGCodex and Flashback, but at the end of the day, political and historical discussions at both forums tend to be derailed rather quickly (when the Codex still had the GD subforum, that is). Flashback is great for reading about borderline-legal craziness such as the guy who woke up with a deer tied to a tree with a rope in his garden (or how was it?), and amateur investigative journalism. There are lots of legendary threads over there.

I'm very sceptical to this opinion of current politics. Considering Mubarak's reign was basically paid for by the US, and Khadaffi's recent turn towards th EU the revolutions in their respective countries can hardly be interpreted as "Western". On the other hand, I think many Middle Eastern countries will drift closer to (democratic) Islamism after this turmoil. Iraq and Afghanistan? That's a different story. But as Iraq have practically become BFFs with Iran as a direct consequence of the US intervention, I don't see how you can adopt a conspiratorial view of the matter. If there is a US conspiracy to overthrow Middle Eastern dictatorships, then it has failed to produce particularly West-friendly alternatives in every case.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/20136104317486359.html So, apparently a mass grave in Tel Aviv from the 1948 civil war in Israel/Palestine has been rediscovered. I hope that this will be able to shed some light on what happened during those turbulent days. Some Israeli leaders partially acknowledged that the murder of civilians had occured, but made the excuse that the Palestinians had brought it upon themselves, by the threats of the Arab leaders. Since the state of Israel did not exist as such and did not have a wholly unified standing army in 1948 (but rather a set of armed militias), no one would eventually be held responsible for any war crimes. Starting from somewhere around the late 90s there has been a new revisionist movement which holds that the main reason for the Palestinian exodus from current Israel was not the threat of violence, but orders from Arab leaders - the version which is now taught in today's schools. The important aspect of this stance is the implicit denial of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. To give concrete examples of the effect of this changing perspective on history, a law which was introduced in 2009 allows no government money to be given to organizations or institutions which "deny that Israel is a Jewish state, the state of the Jewish people", "criticize the democratic nature of Israel", "dishonor the prophet Muhammad the national flag or the national symbol" or - relevant here - commemorates the day of mourning for the 1948 Palestinian casualties and refugees. Although this far, the law has only been applied very cautiously (partly because of dissent from within the judicial branch...), the potential effects on society are very chilling. If tomorrow's judges will come from today's growing group of young far-right nationalists, that seems unavoidable. I hope that this (re-)discovery will create a more accurate depiction of history with the help of modern radiocarbon dating, and bring together Israeli and Palestinian views upon the matter.

By amount of playing time: Hearts of Iron 2 (including all expansions, mods and so on) Unreal Tournament Civilization 2 Arcanum - easily the most replayable RPG I know of There are of course lots of other games I enjoy immensely, but I never ended up replaying them as much. A possible future contender for this list is CK2

I would attribute every action of Russia in this conflict to Russian revanchism with it's source in the end of the Cold War. I think Putin is doing everything he can to spite what he believes is "Western" interests. The Russian base on Syria's coast is basically his excuse for doing this, without it he would just look like a quarrelsome child.

How would Russia create a horde of anything in any way? Russia has a smaller population than Bangladesh - less than half of the US, and less than a third of the EU. The population peaked somewhere around 1991, and they have a population growth rate of -0,51%, for example compared to the US growth rate of 0,97%. I don't see a horde anywhere in those statistics, it's more likely Russia would be inclined to think of Americans and Europeans as "hordes", not to talk about Russia's bigger brother, China.

Really, I thought "diminishing the independence of constituent states" meant close to literally in this context "forcing us to abolish slavery". But yes, alternative history is always very interesting.

I think you misunderstand the reasons why I sympathize with forum censorship. Originally, I didn't, but I guess such things come with age and experience. There can be very harsh language in some other parts of the web, like for example RPG Codex. The "General Discussion" subforum there used to consist of about 100% racism, communists, porn pictures, outrageous sexism and so on. On the other hand there's an almost total absence of that kind of behaviour here on these boards, even though there must reasonably be an almost 100% overlap regarding common interests between the members of the forums. That is the most relevant example since the boards are otherwise so similar, but I have lots of experience with (too) liberal moderators in other forums as well. I really appreciate the more grown-up civilized tone here, and I've come to think that it is likely the result of moderation and censorship, no matter how much the idealist in me would like it to be otherwise. Like you did earlier, you bring up specific instances of moral issues. Of course I also prefer free speech to not being offended (indeed I think it's rather impossible to offend me in the first place anyway, so that's pretty much a non-question...), but that's really irrelevant here. My reasons for supporting censorship (here on these forums, in some form similar to it's current one) are not moral, but pragmatic. I want a civilized debate and as far as my experiences go, this is better achieved with some censorship. So if you want to reduce it to a utility question (I'll reply to this in advance): yes, for me it appears more useful with a civilized debate than the right to offend someone. But of course, the opportunity is always there for you to come up with a captivating and intellectually challenging discussion centered around genitals, fecal matter and Nazi symbolism. If you do, maybe also the mods will be tempted to lift the censorship.

This is hilarious.

Your'e eqating a symbol with a deadly weapon? B.t.w. - banning a swastika does hack s**** to crack down on such organizations. They will just use a different or similar one. If anything, you made them HARDER to detect. I'm equating them in the sense that they are banned for the same reason. I'm sure that the people who originally banned swastikas in Germany could think up legitimate situations to use them themselves. Sensitivity to foreign relations probably weighed much heavier though. What I'm really trying to say here is that rules are in practice pragmatic. You can't demand that laws should be idealistic. It's pointless to argue that a law is unfair in a particular case, you will have to argue that the total effect of the law is harmful to society. To compare, I don't like that I can't write about **** Tracy having a ****tail on this forum, but I still think that the censorship might have a positive effect on the tone of discussion.

Even with all it's inaccuracies, I like 19th century historical paintings. Here's one depicting 14th century Gotland (meh, maybe 100 years too early to be relevant to PE but anyway): Lots of great clothes, armour and weapons there.

Every type of law is a blunt tool. There are situations I can think up where I could justify a lot of crimes. You must think about the overall effect of the law. Maybe it's good to not intentionally use swastikas even if you can think up a legitimate use. Just because you can come up with one occurence where a swastika would be motivated does not mean that they should be used freely by respectful people. I'm also certain I would not misuse weapons, explosives, radioactive substances and drugs, but just because of that I don't think the laws regarding these should be abolished. Banning the swastika in Germany for example, was just a too simple way of cracking down on Nazi organizations.

Back in the days of BG2, the UI was togglable. Most likely there will be such an option in this game as well.

Why does Finland have a plus for Dreamhack? That makes no sense at all...

Please consider doing this!

This approach is ideal in my opinion.

I'm viewing the picture in 1920x1200 and the UI is definitely too small.

I've been thinking about this, and I really want a vertical portrait bar, preferably on the right side of the screen. This.