TheHarlequin

That's all I've been saying. My bad read between the lines where nothing existed. My appologizes.

> But what really bothers me is that the State already has the means to do that sort of thing, with a reasonable degree of accountability. The chief argument adduced to support these initiatives is one of efficiency. So what I can't help but wonder is, the only way to improve efficiency is giving the State carte blanche to spy on people? Really? Exactly my point. > Er, it's a movie (an overly pretentious one at that), not a BBC documentary. And I said as much so..? Like I said as well it was a movie but it made IMO a valid point through the fluff and fiction. Or did I imagine bush used and exploited fear to get some of his policies though that infringed civil liberties? The movie simply took it one step further. I said slippery slope, nothing more or less. and if you can't realisticly envision what bush did being taken further then you simply have no grasp of history. We have been down that road already. > Of course that may require that you step down from the moral high ground you are so fond of and actually look at issues and people as they are instead of placing tags on everything and everyone and working from prejudice and mantras. I seriously doubt that everyone but you and yours is such a coward. I simply expressed my opinion and viewpoint. I don't fear death if its for a good cause. *shrugs* Please don't take your insecurities of the topic out on me, thanks. > And no, it's not your (or anyone else's) beliefs I'm dismissive about. It's attempts to use arguments from Faith to justify or condemn this or that policy that rile me. Because, you know, that's exactly what that infallible douche in Rome does. Someone asked me about dying. Again I expressed what I felt. Next time I'll lie and say yes im cowering in the corner afraid of the big bad terrorists will kill me, perhaps with you next to me. Better?

Time for YOU to join the Army, fellah. We'll show you how to die for freedom. Already did thanks long ago. Did my bit for king and country. And you don't have to be in the army to be a patriot either. Thats a very narrow view point IMO. And those ppl over their are not dying for MY freedom. they are dying for a. A mistake by the bush admin on how they handled it as now its a quagmire/total cluster frag (afgan) and 2. oil (iraq). Whats more accurate is our military are dying for the afgan and iraq freedoms. Not mine. THAT's what they are dying for. They are not protecting my 'freedoms' directly. I am half a world away and don't think the arse clowns in a cave are very threatening to my 'freedoms' at all. We got our revenge, bombed the taliban into the stone age and disbanded them. Mission done, stop nation building and come home.

Indeed. Look, I have this nice bridge in London you may be interested in... No but, again, its the start of a slippery slope. 'oh well you don't need these civil liberties either because of your 'saftey'... oh and these too... and come to think of it this one over here...' etc. The movie 'V for vendetta' I feel portrays, in a holloywood way but still it makes a point, my exact sentiments. Out of fear of terrorism the people go all ultra-consertivite and toss their civil liberties away in the name of 'saftey' while the govt used fear tactics. If you don't think thats the path the far right wing of the republicans want to and were heading down during the bush admin you are mistaken. Thanks for being dismissive about my beleifs. As long as you don't beleive some guy 'died for your sins' and the peep in rome 'is the voice of god' either at least you are consistent however.

habeus corpus suspended and warrentless wiretapping ring a bell? Most of the losses have been for immigrants. Habeus Corpus (off the top of my head, I could be wrong) has been suspended for non-citizens. Wiretapping is very easy to get as well, whereas you used to need a warrant and justified cause. The wiretapping does not bother me at all. I'd pity anyone who had to listen to my mother calling me to lay a guilt trip about Thanksgiving. 'most' <> all. And your view of the wiretapping is, all due respect, a ignorant and short sighted viewpoint. Does a slippery slope mean anything to you? Does it protect us anymore then in the past? I fail to see that. The FBI already had the legal tools to get a warrent within 15 mins with one phone call under probable cause. So you want to remove judges/probable from the process and 'trust' the CIA and the like to police themselves? Because history has shown us no oversight works SO well in the past. I think you'd have a different view point when your door is kicked in and CIA's with M4's secured your house without a warrent/cause. But see by then its too late to complain or worry about it.

We will all be reincarnated so that point is moot. As your death in this life hopefully will be for the betterment and strenght of the republic of the next. You speak of death as something to be fearful of. Its just the next step. If you were killed for your convictions then what a better way to go?

habeus corpus suspended and warrentless wiretapping ring a bell?

The enviroment MUST come first. There is nothing wrong with that aspect. Business won't regulate themselves and will clear cut forests and dump in waterways if they could get away with it. All th the sake of making a $. If your company can't run without wrecking the enviroment maybe you deserve to go out of business.

I don't have a issue at all with terror. Its a natural human emotion and in some cases a very good self preservation reaction. However TERRORISM on the other hand certainly needs to be addressed but NOT at the expense of our civil liberties or bypassing our legal system. If that means once in a blue moon something gets through so be it. No one said a republic did not come without sacrifice. I'm certainly not in favour of abandoning jurisprudence however I would put a few points to you. 1. Sometimes the sacrifice of life cannot be borne. i.e. attacks with WMD 2. I have very narrowly (as in feet and inches) lost two friends, civilian friends, to terror attacks in Madrid and London. I would be content to have my emails read - for example - to keep those dear friends alive. 3. Sometimes the sacrifice you allude to needs to be in individual freedoms, not life and limb. What do you reckon? My reply would be no ones life is above the building block principals of the republic. If security is your #1 concern then toss the constitution and amendments out the window and in still a totalitarian rule or other similar form of govt then ensures security over everything else. Inherently the freedoms of a republic do NOT make the nation as secure. You can't have your pie and eat it too. Either you want to live in a free country with a chance of some wingnut going crazy on you or you live in a locked down society but at least you are 'safe'. Ben Franklin said, very sagely, Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. I agree with him. So do I have a issue getting blown up walking down the street as a sacrifice to ensure the republic remains firm, free and open? No I don't. Again a republic does not come freely. Anyone who would toss the republic under the bus at the first sign of trouble becasue they are selfish, cowards or/and IMO unpatrotic should then move away to a state where such freedoms don't exist but you are 'safe' and stop trying to turn my republic into such.

I don't have a issue at all with terror. Its a natural human emotion and in some cases a very good self preservation reaction. However TERRORISM on the other hand certainly needs to be addressed but NOT at the expense of our civil liberties or bypassing our legal system. If that means once in a blue moon something gets through so be it. No one said a republic did not come without sacrifice.

http://www.adamandjamie.com/mod/dw_darkwaters.aspx And thats just off the top of my head without any effort.

I don't think so. I'm fairly positive there were Pentium 4 chips that were x86-64 (id est these). AMD -CREATED- the x86-64 instruction set, intel followed suit after the fact when it realized it wasn't a fad and here to stay. While I am not a huge fan of wikipedia when it comes to tech or pop culture its pretty good. I'd suggest you check out the page on x86-64 I think you are confusing IA-64 and x86-64 two very different and non-compatiable 64bit implimentation. Unless you are simply stating there were P4 x86-64 chips and in that case you are correct. I am simply stating AMD were the first to make the chips. Your previous post made it sound as if intel were first to do so.

Heh, me too. And it's even the Pro version. Got w7 ultimate in early oct at a pre-release w7 conference here in Boston. $0.0 is a sweet price

Agreed. I have run xp64 and now w7 64 and they all have run my games (new and older) and apps without issue. First year or so of xp64 sometimes 64bit drivers were a pain to find but now they are released same time as 32bit. The time I feel is sooner then later when only 64bit drivers will be released for new hardware.

And even some of those, if I am not mistaken, were 64-bit. AMD did not release their first x86-64 chips until 2003. And they were the first to do so with consumer CPUs. So that is incorrect.

From what I heard people complain about the toolset for NWN2 as being hard to use and not user friendly. That would be a factor in not many mods. And why the same issue is going to happen with DA as that toolset is even more complex. Like I said with NWN2 however that will be a good thing. More quality then quantity will be produced. But that does mean a much smaller mod community then nwn1 and thus less overall.

What I did was use the respec mod for morg and made her into a heal/combat mage. Shes awsome right now and makes wynne moot. On a side note, I also used the mod to give every char in your group 25 tactical slots. This, mostly, fixes all the issues I had with the combat. If they did this to start with I wouldn't have had much megative things to say about the combat. Of course the AI still not firing from time to time is still a issue/bug but at least I don't have to hand hold every char every 10 secs in combat. I can macromanage a battle not micromanage it just like I want it.

I generally stopped replying to you however when you spout off totally incorrect BS I feel the need to play the role of teacher. In fact many games in the past have been bug free. I know I wrote a few multi-player door bbs games in the 80s/early 90s. Were they bug free first time run? No, however did they eventually get bug free by release? yes. Point is programming in BASIC a 150K game in the late 80s vs todays 250meg+ code base today is VASTLY different and I can say with certainty -some- games in the past back then were bug free. I wrote some and played others that were. I specificly stated 'modern' as I have yet to see a modern AAA game that didn't need patches or still did even after the EoL was reached. Example, even today there still bugs (though not game breaking mostly combat mechanics) in games like nwn1 and bg2. Never were a progammer back in the day I take it. Clearly.

Corrected.

What bugs would those be? Didn't we just discuss load/save bug issues 3 or 4 posts up? Path finding can be a bit buggy from time to time. Party AI not firing And folks are talking about CTD as well from time to time. Those are bugs, because its MOSTLY stable/polished does not = bug free. I love how one peep above says I've not encounted any bugs then in the next breath contrdicts themsevles and talks about CTD issues. Then its not bug free is it? Hint; NO modern game is 'bug free'. Stating so is pure ignorance.

DA is not 'bug free'. It is however fairly well polished but certainly some areas clearly need work.

Agreed. FO is a setting/world screaming to be made into a MMO. I don't see why people have a problem with it. As is the Shadowrun universe in fact.

I have had the same bug happen to me.

The armor you get from wardens keeps is vastly superior as a whole then the dragon armor. Sure the da has higher armor stats but the wardens armor you get stats bonuses

Keep in mind these screens are PRE-ALPHA. Much of the textures and other artwork are prob placeholders or whipped togeather yet unrefined just for the time being. Have you seen other (pre)alpha screens then compaired them to the final game? Many examples are night and day.