Nepenthe

Couldn't be bothered to stay up for the Sony prez, but it does sure look like I have a cheap year coming up. Oh well, lessee what the next few days bring us.

To be honest, aside from a few hilarious throw-away lines where she suddenly got incredibly xenophobic (in the true sense of the word!), Ashley was actually pretty pragmatic in her attitude with aliens. We were talking about the top-of-the-line ship of humanity after all. Am I like the only one who ever bothered to work her dialogues so that she reconsidered? From what people write on the forums, it looks that way... Didn't notice the Normandy doing anything to the Reaper, but I didn't see all the demos. The Kinect voice commands looked pretty cool... as in advanced, and not something I'm gagging to try myself.

Demanding "harsher penalties" is a typical populist attitude, no matter where the bar is set. The public perception will always err on the side of thinking that the system lets people off too easy. However, I've actually served in the system, and my opinions are based on actual knowledge of what happens, and not just the newspapers and their attempts to create fear. Or, to actually make a point and not just rant, our system has slowly become the most lenient in Europe, and Green do-gooders keep shutting down prisons and creating artificial systems for cutting down the sentences given in the name of "savings". (first time in prison, non-juvenile, serve half of given, already generally rather short sentence, repeat offender 2/3s, become first-timer again after a couple of years etc.) People given life sentences, known to be dangerous, are released and then execute three people at the McDonalds drive-in within a month or two... and so on.

Blowing a total headgasket at work. I spent 30 minutes talking to some guys who work on my field in an insurance company, and it was more fulfilling than the 2,5 years I've spent working on my doctorate here at the university. I'm this close to just skipping in the end of August, even if it means landing on the dole, I've just ****ing had it with this place. Case in point: apparently the office I was given is now considered "too good" for someone of my status, and there are these slimy postdocs eyeing it up practically daily. One of our guru professors is moving into the office next to mine, so apparently there is going to be a huge fight over who gets the best ass-kissing position.

I've been slowly drifting in that direction myself, I was a member of the Green party a couple of years ago, but I've slowly come to realise that do-gooders like that - who, due to never having done a days of honest work have no grasp of what is realistic, never mind what it feels to actually work for your money (I've worked myself through high school, bachelor's, master's, licentiate and now LL.D.)... and I won't even get started on their policies on criminal justice. Basically, what pisses me off is the government neglecting the classical core functions (maintaining order and infrastructure) while spending money and all kinds of "nice" stuff. I'm happy with a lot of the nice stuff (if university education wasn't free, I could've never afforded it and the closest specialist in this legal field would be in the Netherlands), but getting priorities wrong is just going to **** things up in the intermediate run.

The problem with Greens, like socialists, is that they don't realise that you eventually run out of other people's money (partial quote from Thatcher, I believe). Hence just taking it and spending at as you choose is eventually going to bite you in the ass. You want to have the people who fund the system committed to it. Yeah, it's only semirelated, I admit.

I'm agreeing with Monte here (I must have been too long in the sun).

Slow news day. Also mostly concur with your comments re: socialised health care. Both systems have (big) problems, so in this case I'll err on the side that has better coverage.

Much more likely it's a result of outsourcing QA to cheap labor countries.

No. Why is this abnormal? Seems to be current trend, just like crysis 2, iirc.

QFT The reaction I'd like to see would be a major boost in the money spent on researching alternative energy sources, instead of this... I can't even think of a good expression in English, how would my fellow Finns translate "jeesustelu?" to Jesus around?

Eh, for the most part they're pretty "normal", sure you get the occasional monster etc but *shrugs* At least in the Cali ones a good portion of the guys in there are there on possession charges stemming from pot. The massive overcrowding in prisons isn't helping with the violence, either...

It's been like the opposite for me. I'm not pretty enough to get the vapid hot ones, just the ones with the complexes about "not being taken seriously".

Let's remember the difference between in U.S. between jail and prison, eh? Ouch. caught out. Not as bad as I was by editing that sentence. I apologise for butchering the English language in the quoted segment.

Let's remember the difference between in U.S. between jail and prison, eh?

But that's my raison d'

Yeah, it's different here, you have to undergo all the testing to get approved into the academy (yes, singular).

http://soundcloud.com/xp8/soman-vs-royksop...itor-xp8-mashup From my gym playlist. As well as:

Sounds like a psychological testing failure at some point. The cops I've worked with around here have been really great people, but I guess there's a reason Finnish police still scores so high on all citizen polls.

Taking it for another spin. There's a few engine-side fixes that are making the game more enjoyable (item highlighting and fixed gamma adjustment), didn't run into any story fixes just yet. I still like this game, it doesn't really wow me, but it doesn't annoy me - which, unfortunately, a lot of games do these days (LA Noire's interviews... rage).

10:1 he's trying to impress the girl form the wedding.

Very good choices! I'd congratulate you, but it'd feel like congratulating somebody for getting the clap...

I actually meant to write this earlier, but I think that connecting the 98-99 Kosovo war and what happened during the 91-95 wars is fallacious, and IMO is often used in attempts to whitewash what happened in Bosnia.

Followed inevitably after the original's success by Codex: Chaos Gurkhas.