Zoraptor

The investment funds help a lot. Looks like it will be around 50/50 funding from investors and 'genuine' crowdfunding, if it were crowdfunding alone it would be a lot less than P(o)E and there are less than half the number of backers. Paypal/ backer site will probably help a fair bit since many people do dislike Fig. Have to say, I did find some aspects of the PoE2 pitch rather odd. The world map and boat stuff seems very similar to Risen 2/3 with some additional 'base building', which aren't exactly the most popular of models amongst the target audience. And part of the latest stretch goal seems to be straight out of Stardew Valley (!)- again, not something I'd really expect.

I liked ME3 well enough, albeit it isn't much of an RPG, but Andromeda has a lot of red flags on it. It seems to know what it wants to be as a game even less than ME3, or even Inquisition (disclaimer, haven't played DAI, so going by commentary). A Gears of War/ relationship simulator combination with open world elements? Sounds like it has been designed by committee to appeal to the maximum number of people- and as a near inevitable consequence to appeal to none of them well.

R5 chips are now slated for Q2, R3 for 2nd half of 2017. On the positive side though at 500NZD* for a 1700 the 8 cores are within budget and I could even stretch to an X model if pressed despite having to buy a custom cooler as well. Depends if the old computer carks it soon or not. I was expecting at least $100 more for the CPU given our tech prices are usually inflated massively compared to US. *about $50 less than it 'should' be given the US price, after currency conversion and 15% GST so a very good deal.

It isn't ideological for me- I've been happy with all the Intel processors I've used and if Intel offered a better product at a better price I would still buy from them. Doesn't look like they will though, and I certainly don't have so much loyalty to Intel that I'd buy a worse product just for the brand. The feeling that they should have been offering better products for less certainly doesn't help, but that is the only ideological part. OTOH my attitude towards nVidia probably is ideological- I'd actively avoid their products if possible and would have bought a 480 over a 1060 even when the 1060 appeared to be better value. That that would have been a good decision due to AMD's driver improvement would just reinforce the decision.

I've been extremely satisfied with my now ancient Core2Duo, it would play pretty much any game up until recently and has been 100% reliable for ten years. Could not have asked for more and it will get the electronic equivalent of burial with full honours (and repeated F pressing) when replaced. I've been less happy with Intel over that time though, they've mostly coasted on their advantage and a situation with no AMD competition would mean Skylake-> Kabylake type transitions where the improvements are... limited would be further encouraged. To be honest though, their products looked significantly overpriced/ under featured even before the Ryzen leaks, and now they don't (from the leaks at least) look competitive against the AMD offerings in terms of what I want- future proofing, with things like current game performance decidedly secondary. Ideally, I want a CPU that will last for another ten years, and I simply cannot see an Intel chip doing that as well as Ryzen at this point. It's basically the same situation with nVidia, was happy with their cards but not happy with their attitude, and bought AMD (and will again) since they'd support and improve them longer.

The main problem is that it's just plain old and fundamentally needs replacing. It's not always a bsd, that's shorthand for bsds, lockups, spontaneous reboots etc. It has always been finicky about the case, only other times I've had instability problems was when I cross threaded a case screw (!!, yes, that finicky) and when I lost a screw and did the case up without it- until I got a replacement off of an old case. Everyone I asked about it thought it was a weird problem as well, only explanation I ever got was that it might be the MB warping or the case tensioning/ straining it somehow.

Should be the plain 1700 there rather than the 1600X. Despite what AMD said it looks like a non full range release with the 6 core and 4 core processors being released later than March 2. I suspect the sweet spot for price/ performance/ longevity will be somewhere in the 6/12 range (I'm looking at the 1600X myself) so not having them available as soon is a bit disappointing. (My computer is currently in desktop configuration despite being a tower because the MB is warping and it blue screens if stood up or if the case lid is attached, it's getting to the point where even I have to accept an upgrade is absolutely necessary rather than nice in theory. Hurry up, AMD)

...Which is exactly why the procedure is heavily restricted and only proscribed as a last resort when everything else fails. You mean prescribed here rather than proscribed- prescribed ~ ordered by a doctor; proscribed ~ banned or very heavily restricted by an order/ law. Wouldn't normally be bothered correcting that since it's an easy mistake to make but using proscribed it means exactly the opposite of what was meant.

Update: Two months later and Turkey still hasn't taken Al Bab. They haven't even taken nearby Bzaah or Qabasin either, which are far smaller. They've now lost 70+ soldiers (plus estimates of well over a thousand sponsored rebels dead/ wounded) and have been stuck at the same point for nearing 3 months. But they're going to somehow take Raqqa real soon now, which is 3 times the size, 100+km away and has both the Kurds and government considerably closer- and they'd have to go through the Kurds/ government to get there as well. Erdogan really does live in a parallel universe. On the positive side there haven't been any more pictures of tanks getting knocked out for a month or so, and they've now apparently killed more than the estimated total number of ISIS soldiers in the entirety of Aleppo governate. And since alternative facts are all the rage at the moment, apparently ISIS took the city of Deir Ez Zor at some point. It seems the government troops in the city remain unaware of this fact though.

Depends. Realistically the whole trip was done for stunt value rather than to shore up Le Pen's somewhat shaky diplomatic credentials and that will certainly play well to her base, but it also illustrates that she will have problems if elected dealing with the large number of ex French colonies that are muslim and where a Christian isn't constitutionally always the President as in Lebanon. Her meeting with kind of moderate but currently Saudi puppet Lebanon PM Saad Hariri didn't exactly go well, either, and not due to any veil wearing. She doesn't have any problems appealing to her base anyway and is a shoe in for round 2, but she needs basically every Fillon supporter to then vote for her and there stunts are less helpful. Yeah, but most people who use a 'When in Rome' type argument (for their own country/ immigrants) are actually using it as a cultural superiority argument rather than a cultural acceptance argument. Practically all the potential Le Pen supporters would think "When in France, do as the French do. When in Lebanon... you should also do as the French do, because we're just the best and our values are better than yours" more than anything else. And from that point of view the hypocrisy inherent in wanting immigrants to adopt your culture but not wanting to adopt any else's when in their country doesn't matter.

FWIW at this point since nothing is official the leaked benchmark for the 1700X puts it just (~10) behind the 6900K on that graph, and at about 1/3 the price. (The 1600X on that chart may not even be the X version, since the leak listed TDP as 65W instead of 95W)

Go to someone else's country, be told what you needed to do at a meeting then throw a paddy when you actually have to do it- to get domestic political points? I'm not completely anti Le Pen by any means, but that was pure political stunt.

Given the current situation I can hardly blame Trump for not listening to agencies that clearly want him removed and are trying for a soft coup. Hard to trust their information under those circumstances. Hardly matters anyway, if he went for verification before talking it might stop a 'last night in Sweden' type moment where he's talking off the cuff about something he half heard last night, but there's been plenty of cases of leaders picking information selectively to fit what they want to be true whatever the information they have access to.

Looks like the NDA comes off on the 28th, with product release on March 2. Still all based on leaks at this point but Broadwell-E equivalent performance for 2/3 of the price and without a MB costing almost as much as the processor would be... tempting to say the least.

Any list without AP is suspect. Yeah, gameplay is janky but things like being an unprofessional smart arse dressed in full body armour while meeting Marburg and watching him come to the boil are some of the best actual role playing and dialogue in any game- though of course most won't actually see that on a first play through. The reactivity is minor in most practical respects but the overall impression of reactivity won't be beaten too soon. Speaking of too soon, that thread title...

East End of London hated Bobby Peel's original police force. Most of the negative names for the police in english originate from there.

It's easy for so many to confuse 'credible' news sources with conmen largely (but not only) because you have passionate, biased reporters. Reporters too are people, and they suffer the exact same series/ ranges of fallacies from scenario fulfilment to cognitive dissonance that lead the average Joe to believe fake news, they just get to put theirs down into print and be taken with some intrinsic, but declining, authority. Passion and bias should stay exactly where it belongs, in opinion columns or reddit/ forums/ usenet/ facebook etc- and out of the news. Too much opinion in news doesn't result in better information, it results in precisely what we have now, declining confidence in the entire idea of actual news, one side ignores the other sides' news because it's 'biased', and vice versa. Passionate, biased reporters are easy to discredit because they almost always fall into a range from selectively reporting to constructively dishonestly reporting because their passion and bias- and being human- means that they believe what fits their world view and ignore what doesn't. You then only have to point out what they have ignored, or their selectiveness, or their lies/ mistakes and you've discredited them with a proportion of their user base. Since most people reading a news source agree with its editorial bias- pretty obvious- that proportion which becomes disillusioned ends up not trusting either their own sides press or the opposition's. So, they look for alternative sources of information, usually still on their own 'side' but do it enough and hey presto, you've discredited the whole idea of news. Ironically, that's the (supposed) aim of entities like RT, which they couldn't do it without the help of those passionate, biased reporters feeding them juicy examples to deconstruct. Passionate, biased reporters give bad analysis and colour their stories because they report on what they want to be true, not what is, and are the cancer that is killing real news far more than fake news- which is, after all, fake; and people get disillusioned with mainstream media for a reason, not just because they're stoopid.

lolwut, Paradox had yearly conventions. Oh, non press only conventions. Actually, I thought they'd done one of those earlier as well.

I might have thought that Vals would at least have some appreciation for Hurt, 1984 and V for Vendetta would seem to be right up his alley, philosophically speaking and as warnings, at least.

If you're not going to count an action that was (supposedly at least) ordered by the head of state to be performed, by an organ of state, as a state action you aren't going to count anything done by that state as being a state action. By the same logic nothing done in Syria by Russians is state action, since it's done by individual Russians who happen to be employed by the Russian state and who are, ultimately but seemingly irrelevantly, obeying Putin's orders. And that would be odd, as the US (andor politicians thereof) have spent rather a lot of time going on about Russia this and Russia that as if Russia is responsible for those 'state actions'. If the FSB/ GRU does a hack in the US, on Putin's orders, then it is a state action- Putin is the head of state and the FSB is as much an organ of state as the Russian air force or army is, or the CIA/ FBI/ Army is in the US . The situation is completely different if the FSB or people within it are doing their hacks or leaks freelance, because that is not state sanctioned as it has not been ordered by the state. Indeed it's quite the opposite, if they're trying to blackmail their head of state. In any case, if you want to show that illegality occurred, committed by specific people you can't simply assert it and use that as fact, and neither can the US. Yep, it's easy for the US to fire off accusations that will never actually be tested, but one cannot use those accusations as anything more than as a basis for what the 'US' thinks happened and who did it.

By international agreements that Russia has signed, legality hacking that targets computers in USA is determined by USA laws. Which of course don't necessary mean much as Russia isn't in habit giving its citizens to USA to be tried. Nah, not if it's the Russian State doing it. Even for private citizens extradition itself requires the crime to be illegal in Russia as well, albeit that can be waived. The direct equivalent would be Russia saying that CIA hacking in Russia is illegal. Well yeah, it may be in Russia, but it isn't a crime in the US and there isn't merely no chance of an extradition whatever reciprocal treaties may say there's no chance of, well, anything except incredulous laughter if they complained about it. It's also particularly problematic when you have the NSA rather obviously hacking/ intercepting the Russian Ambassador's communications- completely against the Vienna Convention, of course, but you'd be naive if you thought it didn't happen. Well, if all the intelligence communities want is a compliant leader who does what they want I guess it's all good then? If one were to be facetious one might mention that all Putin wants is a compliant leader who does what he wants, as well... That kind of thinking is far more sinister than Trump being a blowhard, because Trump is both limited in power and is an actual elected official who will be gone in 4/8 years. These guys are neither elected nor are they limited in their power or in the time frame of their power. You don't get any less limited than trying to kneecap your country's leader as there isn't any higher target to go for. And if they get away with it once they'll do it every single time, it can hardly be claimed they'd stop at the President either since- and I know I'm repeating myself- there is no greater target to go for. (I don't give an asterisk if Putin tried interfering here, that's expected and the best defence to that is having a proper democracy where his potential influence never rises above margin of error level. If our spies tried interfering though? I'd have a hard time describing that as anything less than a clandestine coup and outright treason, and would be tempted to suggest actual hanging for anyone caught doing it, pour decourager les autres. Hi GCSB/ SIS, hope you enjoyed my post)

It isn't illegal for Russia to hack the DNC, as Russia isn't bound by US laws. Same as it isn't/ wasn't illegal for the US to 'promote homosexuality' just because that is illegal in Russia. Won't stop the US from trying to impose their laws, of course, but Russia's response is and would be that the US can go asterisk themselves same as the US would tell Russia if they tried to enforce their anti gay laws in the US. And if it were Rich doing the leaking then it may have been illegal- far more difficult to prove it though, since he had legit access to the info- but it certainly wasn't hacking, or treason. As for the rest, you're trying to make Trump a special case. If Schumer or Pelosi were appalled!!! at the DNC/ Hillary leaks and are smugly parroting the current ones that is every bit as undermining as Trump doing it, and every bit as undermining as Obama saying he supported whistle blowers then prosecuting more than all other Presidents combined (iirc) under the espionage act. Truth is that everyone loves a leak that benefits them, and is appalled!!! at a leak that doesn't. Trump is no special case there, he's absolutely par for the course. I don't really see how it makes it easier for intelligence communities to influence either. They're going to do it because they want Trump gone, have the power to, the only people who can stop them rely on them for the information needed to stop them and there's no prospect of the media refusing to print unsupported leaks they agree with. Trump being a hypocrite about supporting/ opposing leaks is a parallel issue that is only likely to be significant to those who already don't like him- same as the D hypocrisy is only significant to those who don't like them.

While I don't really want to get tied up in the minutiae of camel farms in Sweden and other such things Daily Sabah is an abysmally bad newspaper. It won't take a metaphorical crap without written in triplicate approval from Erdogan. Well yeah, and you have the people who were appalled!!! at the Hillary/ DNC leaks who are cheering the current leaks on. Plenty of hypocrisy to go around there, if the circumstances were equivalent, which they aren't. There's a big difference between Hillary/ DNC stuff being leaked by someone be it the mysteriously, unsolvedly, murdered Seth Rich or Vladimir Putin wearing a Groucho Marx moustache as it was information from a private institution to which the leaker either had legit access in Rich or was part of a hack by a 3rd party state which has no obligation to respect US laws. In the current case(s) it's both clear political meddling by, effectively, a state institution (individuals within, but you'd suspect that the leakers could be caught were it a priority for the leadership) against the political leadership of said state and is also illegal leaking of classified material in many cases. The overwhelming impression is that the 'intelligence community' doesn't want to share with Trump not because they think he's a security risk but because they want to monopolise the ability to leak and limit it to anti Trump stuff. They've been leaking like a sieve for the past couple of months, after all. Anyone and everyone should be concerned about the intelligence community influencing politics. Their power over the general population and politicians is an order of magnitude greater than any influence Russia could possibly have even in McCain and Graham's worst nightmare (or Raytheon et al think tanks' push marketing, at least).

Yeah, same studio, same engine. The engine for T3 had been much improved over DXIW though, T3 could scarcely have been made with levels of IW's size. I can't really give an objective reason for liking T3 (kind of) and disliking DXIW though, it's just one of those things where everything about DXIW was off from what I wanted, and while T3 was far from perfect I could at least appreciate the effort that went in and get enjoyment from what did work.

Arkane were working on an actual System Shock game a decade ago, John Riccitiello killed it when he got appointed. Using 'Prey' for this game smacks of someone wanting to cover their arse for paying for the IP and then shopping it between multiple studios for years with at least one aborted effort (Human Head's) ending in PR disaster. At this point it's either release a game or admit failure permanently shelve the IP. Apologies to Shady and WoD, but DXIW was terrible, the only game I've both completed and thought was worthless after completing- next closest is NWN, Bioware version, where I ended the pain early though not in retrospect early enough. I didn't like anything about it, I didn't even like that it had an end to the torment since it just left a dull aching hole where the warm affection and (some realistic) expectations had been. I played it well after release so my expectations were fairly well tempered in the fire of fan reaction, but I'm still butthurt about it 13 years later. Thief 3, on the other hand, was a genuinely decent game with some problems.