Zoraptor
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Everything posted by Zoraptor
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And that is only going to get worse so long as current policies continue. There are two mutually incompatible forces at work. Most western countries aren't having enough children for a population where the old are expected to live into their late 70s or 80s. But, ironically, there also aren't enough jobs for those children anyway; and the people who pay for those jobs don't want to pay what a closed market would demand, they want someone used to an Indian/ Indonesian/ Mexican/ African or wherever else wage to be in them. So you have the peculiar circumstance of simultaneously having too many and too few jobs for too many and too few people. You also have the competing desires of the older part of the populace- who want the superannuation, healthcare etc that they paid for over 40 years- versus the younger population who have to pay for it all once the older people retire, because governments accumulated debt rather than prepared for all those old people, shifting the burden onto the current generation. Since old people vote they tend to get what they want, which leaves much of the younger set and anyone who expected to have a manufacturing job for life deeply disillusioned and looking for someone to blame. When political and economic orthodoxy is failing people go for the unorthodox, and that means either left or right. The most ironic thing is probably old people blaming millenials for everything having voted themselves low taxes, debt spending, easy credit and everything else that benefits them and their position. Having their cake, eating their cake then complaining that their children need to harden up because they're taking the children's cake and eating that too. (as always with generalisations, it's deeply unfair to certain individuals within the generalised group. otoh, if you keep voting from pure self interest don't complain when others do the same)
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You want to change your GPU? That's one activation lost. Wanna change something else? There's another activation.Denuvo activations aren't lost. They are still activations. Something which does not belong to gaming. They also definitively make denuvo not just an 'anti-tamper' measure as claimed, unless they mean that it stops you 'tampering' with your computer hardware. Verifying and tying software to hardware is a definite DRM measure as you cannot use protected software until it's been reverified. (Which kind of illustrates why those Eurogamer articles are trash, since they didn't even bother to challenge denuvo on that. Having said that, DRM discussion #32543 in a series of 100000 is a bit pointless, as everyone's positions are pretty set)
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I do wonder whether he/ Time believed what was written in that article or if they felt compelled to do it as the alternative was to admit they had things completely wrong. Neither is a great prospect for motivation, of course, but Time was one of the most stridently anti Trump media (things like the 'Meltdown' and 'Complete Meltdown' covers) so they have to come up with some reason for why they were wrong apart from them being rubbish- because if they're rubbish then why would you buy their mag? Have to say though, I actually haven't seen many articles in that vein. Lots of general wailings and 'where did we go wrongs' from the media, lots of post facto Hillary blaming, very little Bernie Blaming. Guess the loss was sufficiently bad and unexpected that it has caused a genuine jolt, while the Gore 2000 loss at least could be mitigated by/ chalked up to hanging chads or 'cheating' from Katherine Harris. I'd tend to rate the overall Democrat response as being pretty decently self aware- so far. It's a big organisation with lots of vested interests, it can't pivot on a dime. The Wasserman-Schultz's and Brazile's are unlike to fall on their swords politically or metaphorically but there does seem to be some acknowledgement that things went Very Wrong and a desire to fix them. Probably the only way to make things worse is to blame Bernie for everything, though, and that has to be a temptation for Hillary supporters.
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I know why they did it that way but I kind of wish they'd done the 'flashbacks' and the 2033 stuff as separate episodes/ series rather than interwoven threads. Then again if they'd done it that way I'd probably be saying I'd prefer them interwoven. Dunno, didn't like it as much as I should have but will definitely watch the next episode.
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Hey, I love Farscape as much as the next guy but I do feel compelled, compelled I say, to point out that Farscape is indisputably set in the Milky Way rather than another galaxy.
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Dark Alliance was a fun game. It was certainly 'dumb' when compared to the proper Baldur's Gates, but it was fun and in the end that's what was important. Well, that and it selling well. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone with genuinely kind words about FOBOS though, and remember the marketing as being cringe inducing.
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I know what you mean, but you're taking 'logic' rather too far. Exploration has always been goal based rather than outright logical. Sometimes they're the same thing, sometimes they aren't- if the Americas didn't exist Columbus would be a footnote in history about some idiot who illogically tried sailing across a massive ocean when he could have done the logical thing and explored Africa instead or gone to India by land. By its nature exploration involves many leaps of faith. We also need to consider the competitive aspects of exploration. Individuals and countries were eager to stick their flags in the ground and enrich themselves by getting to new land, and maps were jealously guarded. Nothing quite like going somewhere close, sticking your flag in the ground then coming back to find that there's a bunch of moustachioed conquistadors from El Rey Pedro there and who had claimed the land for Spain years previous. The rough equivalent would be going to Andromeda later and finding that in the meantime a bunch of Turians/ Geth/ Asari/ etc had got their first and were busy nicking all the intergalactic Aztec/ Inca gold equivalent. Perhaps the best historical comparison is to the Portugese. Probably had ~1 million population in the early Age of Exploration, found south america (before Columbus found the north, almost certainly) with more than enough land and exploration opportunities/ exploitable opportunities for a small country. Yet a mere 30 years later they had outposts all around Africa, Goa in India and were routinely toodling around Indonesia as far as Papua New Guinea. From a purely logical perspective that makes little sense for a small country with limited resources even with the lure of spices and the like; and much as with Columbus if circumstances had been different we'd have been laughing at those silly Portugese illogically thinking they could sail around Africa when obviously it was joined to Antarctica.
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That picture seems to be more against Trump than in support of him. As one of the reasons why people say they supported Trump was that he is against political correctness and this picture implies that first three members in his administration have been selected because of political correctness and not because of said people's abilities. I'm pretty sure they'd say that it's a successful PR person, a self made billionaire and a prestigious surgeon who happened to be a woman, gay, and black respectively and were picked for their accomplishments alone. OTOH I'm also pretty sure they weren't actually the first three members of his team anyway. And, of course, if Hillary won and had picked a woman, a homosexual and a poc the same people making the pic would be shouting political correctness, whatever their qualifications. Nature of the game.
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"He supported Hogan who called his daughter's boyfriend the n word. Plus he supports Trump who is racist, sexist and homophobic which means he can't be gay and must hate women as well as hating pocs. He also hates free speech because he and Hogan [plus the jury that awarded Hogan more than he asked for] put Gawker out of business and media should be protected [when targeting those I dislike]. He's alt right [gak] and just a horrible rich white guy whose policies would target the poor who include a lot of pocs" Slight paraphrasing, of course, but I've seen all those 'arguments' made. My response would normally be an eye roll and quote of Cicero's devastatingly casual response 'narratus tepidarius frater' which so infuriated Mark Anthony, if it weren't so emblematic of everything that went wrong on the 'progressive' side. Hypocritical, unappealing to anyone who isn't already convinced yet appears to be effective because the only opinions valued by those saying it are people who already agree with them. As someone who actually is pretty left it's about the most stupid tactic I can imagine, it's already failed and continuing use of it just suggests that lessons will not be learned.
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Fixed that for you. Because, you see, Denuvo does **** all if you buy the game. Just internet neckbeards who blame every bug/problem/mental issue on Denuvo without ever backing up why Denuvo would be the root of the problem. It does go back to the earlier iterations of Denuvo and Lords of the Fallen, it seem that the constant encrypting did ruin some SSD and cause performance problems. They're probably past that now, but considering how buggy AAA releases have been I would say that they're not even worth pirating. They'll never be past the performance problems. Encrypting/ decrypting uses CPU cycles and system resources, no two ways about it. The SecuROM on TWitcher2 was a fully mature product yet if you replaced it with the DRM free GOG executable you got an instant performance increase for free (up to 20%, so not insignificant). OTOH SSD problems were unlikely to be caused by Denovo anyway. And as usual the sheep keep bleating without thinking... Yeah, bleating about Denuvo having no effect on performance. Very low energy effort. To get the obligatories out of the way, never pirated, will probably buy DAI once I have a computer to run it on. Eurogamer articles are rubbish, for purpose used. They do no comparison to a non denuvo version to show no performance hit- they ask a developer using it if there's one, lol, literally; and say there's no obvious degradation like stuttering- don't tell you how denuvo actually works and basically just parrot the denuvo/ denuvo user line wholesale. I wait, with 'bated breath, an explanation of how every other bit of extraneous guff on your computer eating cycles and system resources impacts performance yet denuvo magically avoids what can only be described as reality and runs without any effect at all. Except for its anti tamper effect which springs from the aether, a champion of truth, justice and the DMCA way. I mean seriously, come up with a way even theoretically you can have software checking for tampering without using resources on a computer. Fear not, dear reader, I'm not really waiting with abated breath, as I have no desire to die. The SSD stuff is bollocks. But if you're encrypting and checking stuff you also cannot do it without using RAM and clock cycles, because you simply cannot decrypt or check for tampering using no resources. They're claiming the computing equivalent of perpetual motion.
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They'll never be past the performance problems. Encrypting/ decrypting uses CPU cycles and system resources, no two ways about it. The SecuROM on TWitcher2 was a fully mature product yet if you replaced it with the DRM free GOG executable you got an instant performance increase for free (up to 20%, so not insignificant). OTOH SSD problems were unlikely to be caused by Denovo anyway.
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Why Political Correctness (Cultural Marxism) Must End!
Zoraptor replied to Valsuelm's topic in Way Off-Topic
The people who use the phrase almost always haven't read Marx. TrueNeutral gave you the practical answer, ie it's a convenient label for internet arguments, the theoretical answer is that 'cultural marxism' sees everything in culture as being equal in the same way as economic marxism sees everybody in economics as being equal, with the inevitable consequence being that everything is devalued. While it describes an actual phenomenon the label itself is pure politics. Marxism is used because it's a 'bad' word that vaguely describes the process. Overall it's... pretty stupid. If you're worried about culture being dumbed down then I think the inevitable conclusion has to be that it's popular culture doing most of it. And popular culture is essentially capitalist. A few goateed fedora wearers going to see somebody's Menstrual Artwork is not going to end Western Civilisation. Of course some people manage to combine mass media and marxism as factors which is where you get 'jews are turning goy stupid with mass media because jews love making money, and marxism' type conspiracies. -
Why Political Correctness (Cultural Marxism) Must End!
Zoraptor replied to Valsuelm's topic in Way Off-Topic
I'd literally lol if Milo were appointed Donald's press secretary. Any interactions of flamboyantly gay men with Mike "Christian Taleban" Pence would be priceless. I have a pretty strong aversion to both 'cultural marxism' and 'alt right' as terms since they're usually used lazily. Though I'd admit that if consistent I should probably feel the same about 'SJW' as well, but don't.- 135 replies
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- Milo Yiannopoulos
- Stefan Molyneux
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Underlining added. That's not actually a lie though, as Zhumatsky should know. Those Putin statements were pure sophistry and an exercise in being technically correct; but they weren't lies. There was no 'invasion' of Crimea and Putin didn't send troops into Crimea as the troops were already there at the Sevastopol naval base, so there was no need to. While that gave a distinctly... inaccurate impression it was not an actual lie. I'd be surprised if there weren't some actual lies relating to it, but that isn't one. Things like NATO encroaching on Russia is not a lie either, it's an opinion supported by some facts and countered by others. Whether you believe/ agree with that opinion depends on the level of knowledge you have and the weightings you put on others' opinions and facts. Thing is that there is definitely room for articles of this type and I wouldn't disagree with the central premise (my counter would be that if Putin thinks the truth is irrelevant he is far from alone in political circles, and not just from people like Goering who outright stated it) I've yet to see one that manages to lay facts out without dolloping on a good load of stuff that is actually opinion.
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Pretty much my thoughts at the time as well. I was never that keen on the religious/ predestination stuff even in the early seasons, and its baggage really caught up with the series in S4. I'm not sure how much my reaction was dislike vs disappointment at how much better it should have been though. I think the rot set in in the back half of S3, only thing I really liked about it was Baltar's Trial and that not unreservedly; too much CW like D R A M A (problem with the whole back half and to an extent the whole series) but Mark Sheppard and Adama voting for acquittal in the end saved it. I've tried to get through S4 after the initial time I saw it but have never made it through again, similar thing happens with Babylon 5 as well. My negative thoughts on the end don't really colour my impression of the episodes I did really like though- Exodus pt 1&2 are right up there with my favourite episodes of all Sci Fi (other contenders because why not: Orbit from Blake's 7, Severed Dreams from B5, the Farscape ep with the time travelling where they accidentally boff the timeline [+ Scratch 'n' Sniff, a guilty pleasure], Chain of Command/ BoBW in STTNG or the DS9 episode where Sisko and Garrick false flag the Dominion to get the Romulans into the war)
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I can't believe I didn't put in a pro Hillary message in this entire thread, let alone vote. Must have completely failed to read the vote options properly. Such beautiful quotes I could have used too: Inspiring stuff, and truly presidential in style. Of course, there were a few problem quotes too such as: Not the safest quote when some of your associates have died in... unfortunate circumstances. Plus, of course the name 'George' will get the conspiracy theorists working overtime.
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Hillary campaign post mortem letter. The analysis isn't total rubbish, parts of it are eve fair enough; but overall they clearly want to blame anything and anyone else. Hopefully the Democratic Party overall will be a little more introspective.
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Hmm, pretty sure it's genuine and from when people thought that Romney had won the popular vote in 2012, but had lost the delegate count. The popular vote polling was actually out more that election than this one, iirc.
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The Great Game Giveaway: Tuesday Edition
Zoraptor replied to ShadySands's topic in Computer and Console
Got GOG codes for Victor Vran (I own it, but haven't yet played) and Expeditions: Conquistador (played, tactical battles w/ world map movement in the New World; I'd recommend it pretty highly) from their latest sale going free to a good home. Drop me a PM if anyone wants them. -
Guardian is near pure soft and floppy chardonnay 'leftist' pandering rather than actual leftist pandering, it has nothing at all to do with marxism or even actual socialism. Best example is that they stuck the knife into the actual socialist Corbyn on behalf of the Tory-lite Bliarite 3rd way wing of the Labour Party ...and how much our corporate overlords really let him do. I'm not quite up to date but couldn't dropping out of TPP and NAFTA results in partners and/or corporations filing charges through the investment court system (ICS)? Don't know about NAFTA, but the ICS for TPP only comes into force once it has been signed and ratified, which it hasn't yet. So nobody will be able to sue for TPP provisions, at least. US not ratifying kills it instantly for everyone else too. That's one thing where I am unreservedly in the Trump camp, assuming he sticks to it of course. Because they are the only way to measure how people actually voted. There's no doubt they stuff them up on occasion, as they stuff up general polling as well. Statistically speaking usually 5% of polls are 'rogue' (real situation outside stated margin of error), and that's with otherwise perfect methodology. Exit polls are generally accurate as they have one big advantage over phone polling- you know the polled person has definitely voted. Problems are that people lie or refuse to answer if they are embarrassed by their choice, you can get over representation of views if your choice of polling stations are off etc, same as for phone polling. In this case it was almost certainly people being 'embarrassed' to have voted for Trump. Ideally you take that sort of thing into account, but it's difficult to do in a short poll and there's a lot of subjectivity involved that can get you into trouble. It's still the best way of getting the data though, there isn't really an alternative, but it certainly is flawed. (In a longer poll you may notice that some questions seem to get asked multiple times with different phrasings over the course of an interview. That's the way to tell- as well as you can- whether someone is likely to be lying about their positions. Trouble is that most people don't have time to or don't want to do a 10 minute interview and a fair number of those who do have outlier motivations- eg the stereotypical non voting virtue signaller would probably do a phone interview fine, as it would make them feel important, and good about themselves. So you have to try and balance length vs accuracy, plus weightings, geographical locations etc.)
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No, it wouldn't be just vindictive. She only got off because Obola ordered his corrupt Justice Department to subvert the investigation. There was never a chance they would indict her. This miscarriage of justice must be corrected. Chris Hagen @chrishagentb The Clinton Foundation has issued a brief statement: No Refunds. #election2016 #WheresHillary Yeah, I don't get this line of thinking. If the Clinton Foundation is the corrupt geopolitical front that it's believed to be, then just "leaving her alone" is by far, the worst option. Her run as Sec of State has affected the lives of millions, but just leave it alone now because she suffered a crushing defeat to her ego? If only ordinary citizens were given this luxury. But obviously the implications are far too reaching, despite the FBI's efforts, too many powerful people will want to keep the American image as squeaky clean as possible. I'd tend to agree on the Clinton Foundation with some reservations as below. I was referring to the emails primarily and Trump's threat of a special prosecutor. There Comey has looked and said there's nothing, that should be the end of it. Only reservations I have when it comes to the CF is that it's unlikely to actually be pay-for-play, now, and it's an inherently difficult task to prove there's collusion- especially when you'd expect most of the quid pro quo to have come in a Hillary presidency that never happened.
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Nearly 12 million less people voting overall than in 2008. Fewer black voters (that one is understandable) and also fewer hispanics voted for Hillary than Obama. More white women voted for Trump. Those were all meant to be Hillary's strengths and the reason they didn't pick Bernie. Barely scraped home in Virginia despite Kaine being from there. Poor- albeit improved just not enough- results in the House/ Senate elections. There really aren't much in the way of positives to be found for the dems at all. They even spent around 2/3 more for each delegate won than Trump did- supposedly stripping funds from down ticket candidates to do so too. It's interesting going through the democratic primary results. In retrospect Bernie winning Michigan and Wisconsin looks like an ignored warning, while Hillary winning in the south looks irrelevant. With any luck it will be the death of Correct The Record and similar. Nothing quite like making sure the enthusiastic supporters you did have got tarred with the brush of your very obvious- and frequently obnoxious- astroturfing campaign. Somehow I doubt it though, the lesson learned will probably see the next democratic candidate having a green frog mascot and heaps of forced memes.
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Decent if belated concession speech by Hillary. It still sounded at times like a bunch of computer generated catch phrases strung together by focus groups but at others she sounded pretty genuine. She also looked more genuine than she managed at any point on the campaign trail. Hopefully she'll just be left in quiet, there's nothing to be gained from anything further and any legal attacks would just be vindictive. Overall I think there's only a handful of people who have come out of this election with reputations enhanced. Trump won so he pretty much has to be on the list though I doubt it will last. Otherwise, the head of the RNC who did his job properly, perhaps best (if rather against convention) evidenced by me not being able to remember his name. Had to deal with far more internal party division at the organisational level than the Dems who as an institution near universally backed Hillary, and was a net asset to Trump rather than the counter productive spectacles DWS and Brazile made of themselves. Also Colin Powell who came out of his email leaks with reputation actually enhanced and absolutely nailed Hillary's fundamental problem (~the trouble with Hillary is her hubris) as a bonus. Lastly, Bernie Sanders. He'll be the candidate who could and should; and he's made it very difficult for the DNC to blame him for the loss, though no doubt some will try. His supporters will get some inevitable flak for not being enthusiastic/ enthusiastic enough about someone they didn't want in the first place but in the end he probably has gained more by supporting a losing candidate than he would have supporting a winning one. OTOH the list of people to have their reputation trashed is too long to list.
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Well, an interesting day to say the least. It kind of sums things up that Hillary didn't even go and see her supporters but sent Podesta instead. So what if you're upset, it shouldn't be all about you- though that's been part of the problem from the get go. Possibly the most ignominious political end since Nixon. Will the Democrats have a good look at themselves and wonder why they lost? Probably not, it will be racists and idiots fault- or Nader's- instead of their poor choices which means they've a good chance of repeating all the same mistakes. Not labelling people who aren't voting for you as racists and idiots would be a good start, that isn't going to change people's minds. I have some limited sympathy for Hillary and little desire to stick the knife in but really, she was always her own worst enemy, without Trump's ability to mobilise and inspire and her ending seems utterly gutless. I have more sympathy for Obama, a decent guy if largely ineffectual leader whose legacy is now going to be practically non existent. I do, however, have absolutely no sympathy for the Brazile's, Podesta's and Wasserman-Schultz's of the world who are about as responsible as Hillary for the loss but will likely weasel out of the consequences. Would be interesting if DWS were being challenged now instead of six months ago... As for Trump, he ran a deeply unconventional campaign that went against all orthodoxies and it worked. Almost certainly single term president as he will inevitably disappoint those who voted for him thinking that he'll move the world and the US back 30 years and they'll have jobs for life. He won't be as bad as the doomsayers say, but he'll be bad enough. Hopefully he'll shake up stuff that desperately needs shaking up at least. Will be interesting to see if they try and get TPPA through in the lame duck session now. I'd have bet money on it if Clinton were elected. Polls were abject rubbish. Time for some better weightings guys. Media was abject rubbish. Both were in a bubble of self reinforcing opinions and bereft of ability to deal with Trumps' unorthodoxy properly. Pretty much everything about the electoral process except from election day itself was deeply unedifying and a poor advert for democracy representative republicanism. Best part is watching obnoxious self proclaimed 'true' 'liberals' spontaneously combust all over the internet.
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Works fine without GA, you just have to allow the grauniad scripts. On Firefox at least. Just kind of weird that they'd go to the trouble of making a nice interactive high info map and leave out something as critical as how much each state is worth. The BBC map is far simpler and more basic but includes the number of delegates so is actually more useful.
