Bartimaeus

I've always wondered about your typing style and why you were always so true to it...not even oby could be so perfectly consistent. This is also about the best possible explanation I can imagine for it. I admire your dedication and general person even more now.

As I said before, for the reasons presumably implied by Anita, I definitely would. I don't think Shady said he would have a problem with "only having a female character": he said he has a preference. These are not equitable.

That's definitely a better counter article than the one I linked earlier.

Purchased AudioSurf 2 on Steam. I have several hundred hours in AudioSurf 1, and was expecting to like AudioSurf 2. I don't. Seems like the game is worst in every conceivable way that matters while improving on or adding things I don't care about. I'll be giving it another hour tomorrow, but if I still can't stand it by then, I'll likely be getting a refund.

Joe Buck wannabee getting splatterized? I might need to see this... (...although, to be honest, most other sportscasters bother me more than Joe Buck...and I say that as a Packers fan, and he and Aikman sportscast the majority of their games)

I don't disagree: it's unfortunate, then, that this is (or appears to be?) the general viewpoint of the gaming industry. I understand why it is, because time is money and most corporations are, on the macro-level, developing games to make money...but I don't like it.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/claims-edward-snowdens-whistleblower-files-5882142

Agreed...though this problem isn't usually limited to just the protagonist in most games. Additionally, if you have the option of choosing either gender, the game probably won't be all that well written in this regard to begin with, it seems to me...because good writing would take stuff like gender (and race, if it's a fantasy/sci-fi game...and height, and character build, etc.) into account in a more meaningful, non-superficial way than games ever do today if you're given the choice: it's generally not worth development time building meaningful content around multi-faceted choices, because your players will not be able to see/appreciate all of the dev-time put into that content unless they replay the game several times...which most players don't do (or, if they do, it doesn't hardly ever matter for the sales of the game). In games, having even just two choices means that taking either of those choices won't end up having meaningful consequences/effects most of the time outside of maybe two, three major game decisions for games like Mass Effect (and sometimes not even then), and three or more choices pretty much guarantees that it won't end up mattering. So...in reality, yeah, I would prefer to see less choice for most games in this regard (outside of blank-state RPGs like Baldur's Gate)...so that more dev-time could be spent making what is chosen (or, rather, what is not chosen) actually mean something in the game - actually have it play some part...even if it's not that big of a part, if it's still meaningful. I definitely don't want that to happen simply for the reasons (I'm assuming are implied) in the tweet, though. But seriously, if there was like a...post log for posts being edited, my posts would have sooo many entries. I swear I need to like actually force myself to practice reading my posts and fix/finish them before actually hitting submit...

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having just a female protagonist: there is, on the other hand, perhaps something wrong with finding it necessary to complain that there's something wrong with a game if the devs include both options. Personally, I generally prefer female leads, and would be happy to see more...but I'm not going to go around complaining about the games that are kind enough to include the option for both preferences. (edit): I wish there was like a five minute grace period for editing where it doesn't say you edited. Why do I have to write my posts so horribly the first time and not check before actually posting? (edit): See, I even had to edit my edit for full clarity! Argh!

74% Bernie, 59% Hillary, 46% Rand, 44% Jeb; 89% Green, 86% Democrat, 83% Socialist, 75% Libertarian, 70% Constitution, 41% Republican. I had a whole lot of uneducated opinions I wasn't totally sure about, though, so I'd give each result a 5-10% variance, at the very least.

Ha ha ha...my previous post is rather ironic, given what this post will be about: Restarted my computer this morning for some reason or another...it boots up, stuff is missing and not working - can't even boot into my normal user account...oh no...my storage HDD is not being recognized as being plugged in. Crap: I have a lot of stuff backed up, but I also have a lot of stuff not backed up...and that if it's gone, a month or two's worth of stuff like music and pictures I will have lost...and all of my game saves and mods as well as the vast majority of my documents and some other stuff are all gone. Power down the PC, plug it into a different computer, go to the BIOS to see if the MB can even recognize something's there...nothing. Unplug it and replug it in a few times, trying to boot it in between each one...still nothing. Resign myself to the fact that it appears to be completely dead (even though there were no warning signs at all), and lament that I couldn't boot it up one last time to save some things...even just a few things. Looked like that I would need to reformat my system drive because I store my personal user folder on my storage HDD for easy reformatting, and I can't even boot into my normal user account without having my storage drive working. So I spend the day reformatting and installing stuff...and as one final hurrah, I plugged in my broken HDD again just a little ago and turn my computer on...and I think I hear the hard drive clicking and whirling: it was completely dead before. Stick my head and ear right up to the hard drive bay...and never before have I felt so happy to hear my HDD making funky noises in my entire life. I boot into Windows without even checking if it had been recognized by my MB in the BIOS...open My Computer, and it's sitting right there. Without restarting the computer (for fear of it not booting up again), I've started copying over unbackupped stuff to my SSD and have set up a network location for more things. Now, I'm not exactly the most religious of people....but I shouted "thank you jesus" at about 12 in the morning in an apartment after seeing that it was there. I learned the valuable lesson of backing up MORE THINGS than I already do today.

Barti my darling I'm extremely disappointed that you think a good system of government is one where an outsider can undermine the national security of a government by posting confidential documents on the Internet? That is Assange's view of acceptable conduct. No government in the world would accept this, so I will give you time to reflect on this and then make another post ...you may want to rethink your opinion of Assange ? Re-think my opinion of Assange? I already said I wasn't a big fan of his...merely that, given the circumstances, his Western ideology is more agreeable with than our current Western governments'. Are you, again, suggesting that I should actually have a higher opinion of him? But thats the thing, the circumstances of Assange's actions are unequivocal. He posted confidential documents of the USA and other countries on the Internet. So either you support his illegal and damaging decisions or you don't? I'm not sure why anyone would support this but I can't read minds so I am interested in any justification for Assange's choices...and please consider the words "confidential " and "top secret " At this particular moment, retribution feels like a pretty good reason: our governments have collected and stolen massive wades of information I have not heard any reason I consider to be valid for them taking...and so Assange (and Snowden) have done the same to them. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind...and if everyone's blind, I have little fear of what I consider to be my rights (in this regard) being trampled upon. This answer is only half-serious...but it has some truth in it. Like I have said, I am not the biggest fan of Assange...however, I currently find him more palatable than our governments, and so I am not willing to demonize him upon this basis.

Barti my darling I'm extremely disappointed that you think a good system of government is one where an outsider can undermine the national security of a government by posting confidential documents on the Internet? That is Assange's view of acceptable conduct. No government in the world would accept this, so I will give you time to reflect on this and then make another post ...you may want to rethink your opinion of Assange ? Re-think my opinion of Assange? I already said I wasn't a big fan of his...merely that, given the circumstances, his Western ideology is more agreeable with than our current Western governments'. Are you, again, suggesting that I should actually have a higher opinion of him?

Well, technically, I suppose it is all, in a sense, Western ideology...now, if the world could just start upholding the specific brand of Western ideology that *I* prefer... Assange's "Western ideology" seems closer to what I think is right than our lovely governments', so I guess I should be supporting him, as Bruce seems to like to support the U.S. for the same reason...I've never been *that* big of a fan of Assange, but you've managed to convince me this time, Bruce!

Saw this amusing post on the front of /r/all just now. I am sure you guys will like it. https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/39ovi1/ellen_pao_is_now_retweeting_brianna_wu_its_ogre/

...and Child of Light refunded, because I didn't check for 3rd party DRM and didn't realize Uplay was a requirement. Yeah, no, I can't be bothered with having DRM on top of DRM.

I purchased Child of Light - not expecting to really like it since it doesn't really seem like my type of game, but I liked the art style and who knows, maybe I will: if I don't, hurray for Steam refunds! - and Octodad (2): Dadliest Catch. :D

The only thing reddit's cared about enough over the past few days to allow it to get to the front page during the recent drama/censorship debacle. RIP, Mr. Lee.

They actually removed the "do not automatically download and install updates" option awhile back... Yes...I see that it's now "only update this game when I launch it". How lovely.

Lets you choose between launching a game and updating it first Updates on launch anyway The weird thing is, it actually was letting me repeatedly launch it at that time without having it update. It was when I tried later in the day that it didn't even present the option and just started updating, even though I have the game set to not update automatically...*sigh*

Okay, well, apparently, I was wrong: tried launching EU4 just now and it started auto-updating. Gosh dang you, Valve.

The timing is pretty suspect, I agree... Maybe invisible mode on Steam Friends is next? Please, Valve?

Holy crap! It took over a decade, but it finally happened! Games you set to "do not automatically download and install updates" for, you can finally continue to launch even after a new update for it has been released! Amazing! Now I can actually continue to freaking play my games while I wait for mods to update for new patches.

The last 2% (100/14 questions = 7% per question, remainder 2%) just goes to whatever you score highest at (review everyone's previous scores and/or retake the test and answer randomly, if you want to confirm), and it seems like it goes at random if you have multiple tying for the highest. The test isn't designed all that well, and it's especially frustrating that there are more than four answers per question (I would wager there's likely 7 - one for each character - but I didn't actually check)...but you're only given four out of each question's pool for each taking of the test. So even if you actually matched them perfectly in actuality, a given character's answer is likely to be missing randomly at least a few times because of the four answer limit and you'll have to make do and answer non-optimally in favor of a different character. So...in reality, the test isn't even capable of competently determining what character you most match: retake it and answer in the exact mindset as you had the previous time, and it's quite likely you'll be forced to answer differently as a few of your original answers may not be present for some questions...and you may want to answer differently for a few others as different and new answers may more closely match what you actually think. It's very possible you'll "match" a different character most if you didn't have a super-majority like I did. (e): making this post actually coherent