Zoraptor

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.

Is it my imagination or does that map lack the most critical information for the presidential race, ie how many electoral votes each state has? Otherwise it's very nice indeed.

Id be interested in seeing your work if you are willing to share. I'll send a picture of it as a PM when it is finished. See? Only the most powerful forum members get access to this. It's all rigged so the top 1% of forum members benefit. Is Gfted1 running a clandestine private messaging service to escape public scrutiny? Certainly seems so, and we only know about it because he's commissioning artworks from Meshugger and Meshugger happened to mention them casually- and it's probably going to be paid for by the 'Gfted 1. Moderator' charity, too, I suspect. We need an investigation by James Comey (or, I dunno, Oby/ LoF?) to get to the truth of the matter/ cover things up; depending on what their conclusion is and whether I agree with it. I also hear that Obsidian has been doing some sort of 'pay-for-play' deals where you pay some money to get stuff and gain additional benefits and even some direct input if you pay more. Of course they have claimed it was entirely innocent and is finished now, but I think questions have to be asked! Perhaps these so called 'PMs' will be scheduled for release by Obsidian on November 31st after public outcry, and other moderators clandestine dealing will be exposed by Wikileaks in the interim. We can have accusations that they've been hacked and released by RPGCodex while Tigranes' forum account is found shot dead after a 'robbery' deleted by a freak database error and we can then try and see who else has suffered such 'accidents'; then learn that Pidesco and Rosbjerg meet up for some 'Spirit Eating' every Friday, and it's facilitated by Obsidian (and Atari too??? Is there no end to the depth of this conspiracy?). Oh and you know those rumours about what really took down that nice alternative, Troika? They really did a number there, they've even got Tim and Leonard campaigning for them now. And at the end of the day we'll probably all still vote Obsidian because Bioware/ Bethesda is worse and everyone else is just too small and unknown. Sad (hmm, probably low energy too) really, Larian had a chance as a real alternative until their infamous "What's a Baldur's Gate?" interview gaffe...

It really isn't. You can cherrypick from any set of data, you don't need a big set. All you really need is an agenda, some information that supports your agenda and a basic knowledge of propaganda techniques. A small set of data makes it more difficult to convince informed people as it is easy to check, yes, but such techniques are not really aimed at informed people anyway as it gets progressively more difficult to convince people the more informed they are. It also has a flip side though, more data means it's easier to show cherrypickjing is happening, indeed that is one reason why there's a lot of distrust of media. I think it is fair to point out, it'd be impossible to prove the emails were fake. It would be impossible to convince everyone, but you could do a pretty good job of it if they were fake as it's impossible to do large volumes of made up information accurately. You could easily show that you were in place X when you were meant to be in place Y, that you only met person Z later or they were somewhere else, that person V wasn't at that job yet, etc etc. There's too much detail to get it right, and the instant response to fake emails is to say they're fake as that is both a complete defence and discredits WL. Meh, interview is rubbish. Basically just wank saying what people want to be true, plenty of the usual self contradictory stuff as well- Russia's economy is crap, but simultaneously upper-high; they have nothing to fear from the west, except the west is ruining their economy; Putin needs constant confrontation (examples from his first two terms? No?) while the west presumably doesn't despite having far more wars over the past 20 years than Russia. It's that sort of crap that gives Russia ammunition and is part of the problem. [late edit: the thing I disliked most was using 'isolationism' to describe Russia not liking the west, which is overt occidentcentrism and pure narrative pandering. Isolationism is something like DPRK where nobody likes them and few tolerate them or Eritrea where the country is locked down as entirely as they can make it; Russia's relations with most of the world are absolutely fine. There are even still discussion of a FTA with us, as we're not part of the sanctions regime. There's no fundamental desire to disengage with the west that isolationism implies, just a deep- imo justified- scepticism about their motives] Plus of course it doesn't mention that even if there were Russian hacking it wouldn't matter if there wasn't bad stuff to hide. If the worst was Huma and John's Spirit Cooking there simply wouldn't be a story.

The problem there isn't specifically too much information though, it's people cherry picking only information that fits their preconceived positions or not being equipped to filter it. Either can and does happen even when there isn't huge amounts of information. People who lack time or critical faculties can always go to a news site to get a filtered appraisal anyway, doesn't mean that that should be the only option for any complicated subject. And you have to ask what the alternative is. I'd far rather have too much information than too little, and the idea of having someone deciding the Goldilocks Zone of information for me does not appeal. I don't really want Fox News or CNN deciding which emails are relevant or whether climate change exists because I know perfectly well what their positions will be irrespective of what reality actually is.

Nah. This ain't 'The Practice' or 'The Good Wife', it isn't even 'Boston Legal'- though I'd suspect Trump would like to be played by James Spader Bill Shatner would be far more accurate- it's stuff released on the internet. So instead of maybe a dozen people having to pore through hundreds of pages of documents while tense music plays and time counts down there's millions of people using search terms on a search engine with as much time as they want to spend. Document dumping is also an obviously negative tactic in legal terms, designed to obfuscate. Here it's just WL's modus operandi; and if they did editorial control you can bet every cent in Bill Gates' bank that that would be the point of attack instead, ie that they were selectively releasing stuff. More generally, information overload can be used as a negative for any subject. Climate Change or any complex science, international crises/ relations, economics or whatever, there's frequently more information available than any reasonable person could either assimilate or validate alone. That usually isn't seen as an actual negative though, just an inevitability, unless someone is trying to do a quick and dirty job of discrediting someone ("oh, you haven't read every study written on Climate Change? Your view is therefore invalid") That works both ways though. The information will be seen as automatically salacious by some because it is 'leaked' information rather than being 'legitimately' released; but others will automatically dismiss it because it has been leaked rather than officially released. Realistically which is which does largely depend on the person's predetermined views. Sending agents provocateur to opposition rallies is not a good look, and it isn't the first time it's happened from the Dem side albeit the other time was more overtly provocative. Sending observers is fine of course; but that's the equivalent of Glasgow Celtic Football Club 'proving' Rangers are a bunch of violent thugs by sending someone into the home stand at Ibrox wearing a Celtic jersey. Technically any violence would still be the fault of the Rangers fans, but they'd have to know they'd get that response and most of the point was to get it too.

Wikileaks doesn't have agents. It just acts as a dead/ drop box for other people's info. Which may or may not have been obtained illegally. That's the problem for the US, much as they'd love to go after WL overtly they cannot since they definitely don't do any hacking or similar directly illegal stuff; they just distribute information that is leaked to them. eg Manning didn't illegally obtain the info he gave to wikileaks, he illegally distributed information he had legitimate access too- similarly Snowden (albeit not WL related) didn't hack the NSA, he had legit access to information he then distributed. If Mark Rich gave WL the DNC leaks- as Assange has repeatedly hinted at- then it wasn't hacked either, since he had legit access to it. The only election relevant stuff that was likely hacked is the Podesta emails where he fairly clearly got phished. Yep, and that's the crux of the matter. They're real documents and emails, and there's never been a serious effort to discredit WL information as being false or altered, all the effort has gone into obfuscation rather than denial. If they were false that would be the defence, and it would be a complete one that would discredit WL far more than any amount of neo Red Scare McCarthyism and claims of bias could.

Yep. Pres-->VP-->Secretaries-->Kiefer Sutherland------------>Gfted1. You guys better pray that the guano never hits the fan for I will blot out the sun with drones. You missed out 'Speaker' between VP and secretaries. Significant because he's fairly likely to be of the opposing party, eg if Obama and Biden bought it you'd have had a real life President Ryan.

I found Gizmo's post of 5.40am NZST 5/11/2016 to be an interesting take on the 'serious post' oeuvre. It started, as most such serious posts do, with setting out the opinion of the poster, in this case that the 'The Witcher' series of computer role playing games has declined in quality after the first one. Since this is a controversial view I was glad to see the use of the acronym and qualifier 'IMO' (In My Opinion) to reduce the confrontation inherent in such a radical interpretation. He/ She/ [pronoun] then moved on to setting out the reasons for his opinion- a sensible and some would say obligatory step in any analysis that is sadly often neglected in these times of brief twitter posts and single line sarcastic or inflammatory drive bys on forums. While I may have appreciated a little more detail in some areas the point was conveyed effectively and with brevity; which is, after all, the soul of wit. Perhaps my only criticism of the post is that there was no commentary on 'The Witcher 3' and whether it was an improvement or not over 'The Witcher 2'. My presumption is that Gizmo did not in fact play 'The Witcher 3', perhaps after disliking 'The Witcher 2', however, some clarification would have been appreciated. Having said that I have to end with a final positive observation and appreciation for the presence of a short statement of summary and conclusion at post end; another facet of forum posting that is in sad decline. Overall I liked the post and rate it a perfect 7/9, though due to the review policy of this august institution I did not of course officially like the post.

Boo's favourite Youtube video- she laughs at Gaddafi getting raped to death with a bayonet. Why does Mrs Clinton find sexual violence so amusing etc etc? Unfortunately the worst enemies of traditional information sources with regards to 'truthiness' is themselves. Some people will always gravitate towards sources that reinforce their own view and always will; but it's clear that even those who don't do that regard traditional media with scepticism nowadays. People don't expect Breitbart to be 'honest', they do- did- expect that from CNN, WP, NYT, BBC etc. Every time they do thinly disguised puff pieces, thinly disguised hit pieces or give incorrect facts they lose the trust of a few more people. Unlike ye olden times it's now very easy to find out when they are doing so as well and there is an endless supply of alternatives to pick from. It's not for no reason, and the correct point of comparison for Reagan should really be 1980 candidate Reagan not 1989 Reagan, and 2000 candidate GWB, not 2009 GWB. We're looking at candidate HRClinton, not President HRClinton after all. There are multiple reasons for why she's viewed so poorly in comparison, each of which might be small by itself but they all add up. (1) Neither Reagan or GWB had any significant scandal associated with them prior to being elected. Hillary does, multiple ones, and some aren't that minor. Any single one would not be significant but it's the sum that is significant. (2) There wasn't a tiredness for political dynasties then; that there is now is largely thanks to GWB but there wasn't prior to his election. (3) Elements of Bill's presidency genuinely stank and Hillary gets tarred by association. Pardoning Mark Rich; and while Kenneth Starr was a puritanical git Bill should never have got involved with a subordinate/ intern as that's just inherently- and obviously- dodgy. (4) Neither Reagan nor Bush had been in federal government prior to being elected. (5) Hillary has, effectively, been running for president for more than 8 years. Related to (4), some people have just got sick of her and relate to the newspaper article she's had tons of time and opportunity to get people to distrust her. (6) Reagan and Bush had a folksy likeability that made them appear genuine. I don't think even Hilalry's greatest supporters would say she has a 'folksy likeability'. (7) Media propagation. Internet, media 2.0 etc is far more prevalent than when Bush was elected, let alone Reagan, so things aren't seen through the prism of mainstream media. The US system is almost uniquely (well, outside of quasi 'democratic' processes like in Syria/ Iran where you have 'genuine' democracy, just with hand picked candidates picked by one entity instead of two) set up to make sure that either a red or blue ratbastard is up for election each time, in this case they've just managed to get two unlikeable ratbastards.

That is the thing, really, a game like CK2 would have been a far better choice. Even something like Stardew Valley would have been better, though not as good as CK2. There's nothing wrong with examining the way relationships work in games; they are game systems so analysis of them is essentially the same as examining the combat system or resource economy. The choice made was an utterly gutless one though, and -imo at least- an actively capricious one too. It's a single dev game, in alpha, with bugs and is thus both 'safe' to attack and has systems that are very obviously subject to frequent, substantial changes and also frequent, substantial deviation from what is intended. Do the same article on CK2 and it's a look at a mature game with mature systems, from a decent sized studio, well(ish) known etc. But of course do it in the same style and you're far more likely to get a negative response from Paradox that might have actual repercussions. The whole article assumes a... malice, for want of a better word, on behalf of the developer that cannot be justified. Malice on behalf of the article writer, otoh, can be suspected with a fair bit of evidence- the disclaimer about the dev wanting 'editorial control' of the interview is distinctly misleading as he wanted a lack of editing from anyone, not without justification given the end result. Overall; the analysis is the worst sort of trivial because it's of an early access/ alpha game, the target is picked to maximise clicks not to provide meaningful analysis, it appears to be at best accidentally malicious (frankly, I think it's deliberately so) and it could have very serious consequences for that single developer by whipping up a righteousness storm. I'd object to it less if there weren't potentially an interesting article there.

Grr, yes, brain though Prey 2, hands wrote Dishonoured 2. Dishonoured 2 is well past the point at which you'd expect Chris to be involved, plus it's the wrong Arkane studio working on it.

Archive link. Don't usually do them, but honestly, it's a dreadful clickbait hatchet job. Now, off to check if Rimworld is on GOG (it isn't).

DivOS 2/ Larian (finished, I think), System Shock/ Night Dive (pending, nothing actually done yet), Dishonoured 2/ Arkane (current, non kickstarter; Beth game of course which explains why he's reticent to criticise them even indirectly). I think he's done some 'consultancy' for others as well, without actually doing any writing/ designing. And of course lots of interviews/ panels/ conference presentations and the like.

TBH this is the main reason why I can't fathom why he went to Bethesda while complaining about Obsidian's management. That's a somewhat different issue to my mind. Bethesda can be good to work for as owner of a subsidiary developer or developers at that subsidiary; and it could be good for management since Raf is still head of Arkane after selling up while also being potentially very bad to work for as an independent. My major objection is basically that Chris is simply wrong in the conclusions he has drawn, ie Bethesda don't buy studios they like working with unless they only liked working with one studio that happened to be Crossing into bankrupcy before Beth got involved. Indeed, it is kind of ironic that Chris implies that Bethesda didn't like working with Obsidian when he would almost certainly have contributed significantly to that with the metacritic bonus issue leak and Obsidian is the only recent external studio to work on a core Beth IP, albeit Fallout wasn't so core at the time. (I actually have a certain amount of agreement with Avellone's implied criticisms of Obsidian management as there has been a lack of repeat custom from publishers until recently which suggests poor results even if there weren't rumours/ evidence about development problems on almost all projects up to DS3. But I do wish he'd either come out and just say everything or no comment it, the current approach is just kind of passive aggressive jilted lover/ bad divorce. Plus I'm always mindful that if he really ended up with one friend at Obsidian then it's pretty unlikely to be everybody else's fault)

InXile (Hunted: The Demon Forge), Behaviour Interactive aka Artificial Mind & Movement (WET), Mad Doc Software (Star Trek, bought by Rockstar), Headfirst (Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, went bankrupt)? InXile's already on the list after Obsid. Couldn't forget Brian, after all, especially in a thread started by his arch nemesis. If I only missed three I'm pretty pleased, though I should have had remembered Mad Doc since I knew a couple of people who worked there from Looking Glass/ Irrational.

Both sides have conspiracy theories- things like birtherism have been pretty rife on the right. There's little shortage of smug self satisfied self important blowhards on either side as well since that list of adjectives are a near perfect description of most politicians.

I mean it in the nicest possible way but you are such a 14 year old girl with your thread titles Infinitron. Yeah, nah. Don't see that at all, except for a bit of the 'potential' part- Bethesda buys studios they think will make them money or which they can get cheap; and if we believe Human Head they're not averse to being... creative in their means of getting companies cheap. In fact I'm not sure any other company was acquired by Zenimax/ BSW after working with them except for Arkane; Rage (iD) was going to be published by EA not Beth, Battlecry was created by BSW, Tango & Machine Games were both bought out almost immediately after being founded. Indeed, in the past ~ten years they've only bought one out of six studios they've worked with (Arkane; Obsid, InXile, [brink devs whose name temporarily escapes me], Human Head, Rebellion) and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few from the unbought list.

One of the games I recommended has gone (UGGettysburg) so hooray, I guess. Someone needs to take Quadriga (roman charioteering, Tim Stone review) and I'd add a recommendation for Stardew Valley as well, very much a makework farming/ exploration/ relationship game but extremely charming, and I'm not someone who gets charmed easily.

They're releasing it in sections which Comey can't do anyway since he has only one (relevant) case and they hadn't (officially) seen the emails yet. There's nothing inherently wrong with staggered releases, it happens all the time both within and without politics. Game companies don't release all their promotional media in one big blob, political parties stagger the release of policies that were usually developed at the same time, big media scoops/ investigations get multiple articles over multiple days or weeks etc. It's about prolonging and gaining maximum exposure. A good comparison would be to the Panama Papers, where the leakers blew their load quickly and they then disappeared from public consciousness and memory just as quickly. Maximum exposure is not the FBI's aim, Carlos Danger sourcing notwithstanding. It's no revelation that Wikileaks is about self promotion, every media organisation is about self promotion. They're just not wholly about self promotion, they're also about providing a safe place to leak stuff.

Comey is in the exact same position as Wikileaks is, he's in an impossible position because whatever he does influences the election. Sit on the information and he influences blue+/ red- or release it and influence it red+/ blue-. The only thing that changes is which of blue/ red likes/ dislikes him. And WP is pretty definitely on Team Blue or at best Team Establishment. At the end of the day if Hillary had not run the private server and didn't have a reflexive need to dissemble and obfuscate if not outright lie then none of this would be happening, and the attempted hatchet job on Comey has the exact same method and aim as the "Russian puppet" accusations against Wikileaks. It's all about shifting the conversation and discrediting the source rather than addressing the issue. And the trouble with that is while it is normally Politics 101 it doesn't work well for a disliked candidate as people are presupposing the worst. Similar with Trump and his sex scandals, though at least he can outright deny them as well as targeting the accusers.

If it's even real. I can't find the equivalent page on HRC.com and it doesn't wholly match the site set up either, though either could be due to it being a javascript infested hellhole or indeed it might not even be HRC.com but the Democrat Party homepage. More to the point though, why does the 'after' page start at Oct 28 and the 'before' page start at Oct 29 when you'd expect them to be the reverse? Which is why if you're going to do infographics you should put the source urls somewhere. Heh, found the page. Judge for yourself or TLDC; it's a load of old bollocks and the 'before' page is actually the 'after' one. Pretty obvious why this infographic got no source URLs [i'll laugh if somehow I'm getting a cached page and the infographic is right]

A few more EA games have been released- Crysis, Crysis Warhead and MOH: Pacific Assault. Also Divinity OS 2 (Warp?) has been released as an In Dev ('Early Access') title and for redeeming from the kickstarter.

That's... arguable, at best. If you take west as OECD then the US is ahead of at least Turkey, which probably counts as 'west' since its OECD and NATO (and Australia, NZ, Japan would usually be counted as part of the west, and we're far more east than Turkey is). The most usually cited WHO list also has the US ahead of New Zealand and ROK, for example, but it's old data plus see below. There's also massive differences in how 'quality' or 'outcomes' is measured, if you have an unlimited budget for treatment the US is probably the best place to be sick. If you exclude people who cannot afford healthcare/ only use emergency rooms then the situation of the US improves dramatically, if you weight results towards high end treatment then the US does a lot better as well. If you use a per capita basis and focus on things like prevention and cost/ benefit the US does poorly despite its good high end because its low end is... poor, as when you have people using expensive emergency treatments once they're already seriously ill and suchlike. But in any case, that's why quality of healthcare data sets are pretty inconsistent between each other. In most cases where treatment is actually received the US actually provides top 10 healthcare in absolute terms and is ahead of many/ most western countries- it's the selective supply that's the problem and many (not me personally, but I do think it's a valid argument just one I disagree with) would say that that is a separate issue from quality/ outcomes of the system itself. Actual indictment is irrelevant for election purposes though, as she can't/ wouldn't be indicted in less than two weeks. And there isn't much Comey can do to ensure indictment/ prevent a post investigation whitewash himself; that's up to the prosecutor/ AG and whatever integrity she may have or not have. FWIW, I had to agree with his initial report in that while I have little doubt that Hillary did stuff which was illegal, and did so deliberately, it would be impossible to prove it in a court.

Timing suggests this isn't a whitewash. In two weeks time it would have been irrelevant, this will effect the election, potentially significantly. If they wanted a whitewash they'd do what the State Dep (?) did with scheduling release of a bunch of Hillary's emails for a post election day (originally at least Nov 31st, a day that doesn't even exist) If you honestly think its peoples salaries that have broken our healthcare system then I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. 'For profit' is the problem*, and salaries are inextricably tied to that since they are linked to profits. Salaries are a symptom rather than the cause, but they're a direct consequence of the fundamental problem due to performance bonuses and the like which are based only on profit made and which encourage the CEOs to only take that into account. *It's fine in most circumstances, but with healthcare it provides a rubbish service at a high price because the onus is to make money rather than treat people effectively. The temptation will always be to jettison anyone who starts costing you money and to emphasise the cheapest option rather than the most effective. And because the insurers tend to act as a cartel you don't even get the competitive benefits a capitalist service is meant to give. Private insurers here are cheaper and offer better services than in the US, ironically, because they do have to compete- with a mostly free (albeit limited for elective stuff) government run service.