Bartimaeus

Will anyone take over after Christopher, I wonder? The bloke is in his 90s now, after all...

Yes, from my own guess, and based on what I'm reading in the foreword of the book, this is basically a reframing of the story as to separate it from the Simillarion, and to make it easier to follow. On a side-note, I just remembered that I don't like Christopher Tolkien's writing:

"New" J.R.R. Tolkien book: https://www.amazon.com/Beren-Lúthien-J-R-R-Tolkien-ebook/dp/B01MG2HOWD/ Article on it: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-40109396

I tried to find more info on the issue by searching for recent news about it, but failed pretty miserably.

When I last played BG2 about a year ago (or something like that), I discovered that a random Shadow Thief in Trademeet held the Gloves of Missile Snaring. I knew that they existed from mucking around in the files, but figured (without checking) that weren't actually present anywhere in the game. It's an odd location for a unique magical item, too, because the character is only there for one encounter under very specific (and limited/fleeting) circumstances and immediately disappears after the first time you talk to them (and they automatically talk to you the moment they see you), you can't pickpocket them for it, you can't obtain them from them via dialogue/quest, and there's no reason to fight or kill them. So...a pair of unique and useful gloves that the vast majority of players probably didn't even know ever existed and had no realistic possibility of obtaining without already knowing they were there. Strange.

In other news, Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate deal, making them one of three countries (Nicaragua and Syria being the others) to not be party to it.

Gotta get rid of the "&feature=youtu.be" tag at the end for it to automatically embed...and because you already posted it, you have to remove the bbcode in BBCode mode (or just remove it entirely and re-paste the link without the aforementioned tag) because the forums automatically hotlink it with the original link that you posted. See above. (e): I might as well take this opportunity to complain about the BBCode mode being broken again, because yes, it's still broken, and yes, the default non-BBCode mode is terrible, and so the current state of affairs is also terrible. It sure would be nice if it were fixed.

Probably only on one of their useless Extreme sockets, though...and $2000 on top of it...

I didn't know that, either. Huh.

Well, Veterans Day is really more honoring veterans, dead or alive, which is what I was getting at with my "not specifically" comment,

Not...specifically, but Veterans Day more or less covers it to the same effect. (e): Condolences, Tale.

That's not a real thing though. Just because a bunch of twitter wierdos tweet and some blog complains about it, doesn't make it an actual movement. This article is actually spreading the dumbness by bothering to react to it. Ceterum autem censeo Twitter esse delendam.

Games kinda sucked in general from that period. The advent of awful shallow open world settings and gameplay mechanics, the popularization of MMOs (and the industry seemingly revolving around them and trying to ape their awful mechanics and norms as much as possible), and it was still pretty early into 3D graphics (graphics not mattering insomuch as the effect it had upon game design and mechanics)... There were exceptions, of course, but it was a pretty bad time for gaming, especially with the tiny indie scene - nowadays, there's so much more going on everywhere.

It will differ from game system to game system, because sometimes a "10% increase" means adding 10% to your critical chance (so if your base chance was 5%, it would then be 15% - examples of this would be in Diablo, and as Azdeus just said, World of Warcraft, apparently), and sometimes it means to multiply your base chance (so 5% * 1.1 = 5.5%). Sometimes, games aren't totally clear about what they mean at first glance.

What kinds of mods are you looking for? Personally, I'd say Stratagems is my single most important mod for playing the BG series, which is a collection of small feature changes, but also mostly an AI mod...plus some additional challenges if you're interested in that.

Hm. Yeah, I'm just not totally sure how true that sentiment actually is - at least, on the scale you're implying. For very small number increases, it's going to be hard to notice a difference either way...but personally, I prefer the greater chance rather than greater damage: though mathematically it all evens out in the end, on a more micro-scale (e.g. a single combat encounter), I prefer a more consistent and predictable output, which means I prefer the greater chance to score a critical hit rather than the greater damage.

Are they bringing the works of art to museums or something, at least? Like Guard Dog said, some of these folks weren't necessarily bad people - Robert E. Lee certainly deserves great respect - so it would be a shame if the works just disappeared into the night. (e): Pidesco already answered this, whoops: yes, they will be.

Unless there's a hidden submenu somewhere I've never seen (...I'm pretty sure there isn't), yep, that's it.

Sorry to hear that, majestic. Preventable deaths are some of the worst...

Works fine for me.

The claims to be the 3rd Rome were based on the Tsar's claims of inheritance based on his marriage to the niece of the last Emperor and Muscovy's status as the most powerful Orthodox state. Yeah, I know. Still doesn't make it Rome. :|

(for context, Comey said he would only testify if it were public)

...realistically speaking, I'm not gonna upgrade from my 4770k until I actually need to, which is probably going to be in like 3-5 years...

I refuse to play games based on silly things sometimes, so I don't know. For example, though I think the gameplay looks like fun, I'm just gonna have to straight up refuse to play a game called "Immortal Redneck". The game has a nice setting (Egyptian pyramids, from what I saw), decent-looking gameplay...but you play as an immortal...redneck? I mean, come on, guys - I just can't do that. Meanwhile, a few of my friends got into Overwatch a while back and I refused just on the basis of the character design of literally almost every single character being just absolutely totally atrocious. I just don't have the motivation to get into a game where the presentation seems so bad - got other stuff to do.

I don't really like talking about Owlboy, because I hate to only faintly praise a game, but it's what's appropriate for it. Awesome pixel-art graphics, but overall just a decent/solid game, not much more. Nothing of the story, dialogue, or gameplay is bad, but none of it is really that good, either - just decent.