Zoraptor

Already own them all, though I couldn't find the Majesty CD last time I looked. And really, given Paradox's stated philosophy wrt DRM it should have happened years ago. Still, if Paradox allowed me to convert my copy of CK2 into a Galaxy/ GOG copy I might actually forgive them somewhat for trojaning steam into it.

Well, OK, since you asked. In the more meta way, I was obviously referring to the recently closed threads here. When will this thread get the Nguyễn Ngọc Loan treatment, and for what? We don't know- as soon as someone complains about it hurting their feelings? When someone repeatedly complains? That's a ridiculous metric for anything when you don't have to read the thread. But in any case, the implication is that if we don't make it 'inclusive' in some nebulous way- most likely which 'we' cannot control such as people with counter views speaking up- it'll go because the people who don't speak up think it's unwelcoming. Some women may be insulted by a robust discussion on feminism. Some will be even more offended if you assume that they're delicate snowflakes who cannot handle a robust discussion on feminism, or that such a thing will drive them from the internet. Which contradictory set of women should be catered for? Obvious answer, you never actually have any discussion because however you handle it someone will be offended. It's also why your definition is ridiculous*- if you're going to try to be PC it relies on guessing what other people think and what other people will be offended by. And, is very seldom actually held to by the people espousing it (often except as a means of getting other people to shut while feeling morally superior about it) so, with acknowledgement that you certainly have definitively stated that it's an aspirational aim that you don't always live up to, but as an illustration: Paranoia is a serious mental issue. Perhaps you should refrain from using it as a derogatory term in the future as well as retarded? Political correctness has a chilling effect on free speech because it is a nebulously defined set of non rules in which you are expected to self censor based on what other people may be offended by. It makes subjects taboo, stifles debate on others and is used as a crutch to shut other people up under the guise of preventing offence. It also tends towards being counter productive. Hurlshot wanted to know why feminism- which everyone said was a great idea alleviating obvious unfairness, up to a point, at which the debate began- was so badly received nowadays, and that, largely, is the answer why. Political Correctness too is actually a great idea, up to a point, but has a largely negative connotation now because it's passed the point where many people think it's reasonable. Most of all though, there is no right not to be offended and there should never be a right not to be offended as 'offence' is subjective and is often caused by simple disagreement. If one applies empathy evenly, to both parties, it becomes obvious that you have two options; both sides should shut up for fear of offending the other in which case nothing controversial will ever be said, or neither side should shut up and both should be OK with that. *I actually do try to follow "don't be needlessly offensive" as a personal rule, which is pretty similar- because by and large being offensive is counter productive as a technique and being needlessly offensive usually means you're actually losing as well. If I followed "don't be offensive" instead though I'd barely write anything at all because, well, someone will be offended at pretty much anything. [Edit: meta acknowledgement: Obsidian has no obligation at all to allow free speech on their own private property, and they don't actually need to have a good reason to nuke them either]

Really cannot agree. What exactly is he even bothering to ask the questions for if he starts an interview with "are you a pathological liar?"- that doesn't say that you're interested in answers at all, it very strongly implies you aren't actually going to believe any answers you get from said pathological liar. Plus, it very strongly implies that anyone reading the interview should not believe PM's answers either. And as I said before, one of Molyneux's big problems is that he does give interviews, and everyone already knows (realistically since B&W, or at least Fable 2 for the naive) he lets his mouth run away with him. He'd have had a lot less problems if he'd just shut up or if people stopped asking him questions- which would be the sensible response to someone who actually was a pathological liar, because you simply cannot trust them. His ability to convert the dreams and visions he talks about to cold reality has been very, very questionable for more than a decade. (If I were answering the interview my response to the first question would have been "Dunno, are you a pathological believer, John?". Then again, I don't like Walker and find he goes for easy targets and ducks the hard ones.)

Biggest consequence of political correctness? Chilling effect on free speech.

All? They tend to limit that description to western Ukrainians and the government, they certainly wouldn't describe the eastern Ukrianians as such. Yeah, but he lost them February last year when the coup happened and Yats and Turchenov decided to expedite signing of the EU agreement; not when Crimea regained its self determination and separated from Ukraine as it had tried to do in 1994- a legal process per World Court Kosovo- then petitioned to join Russia. The idea of Ukraine joining the EU- or even NATO- is now moot as well, can't happen while a bankrupt country is in a haemorrhagic 7% p/a depression and fighting. (Odd fact, New Zealand was close to joining the Eurasian Union, effectively. Not that I'd really class us as 'important', but it's illustrative. We almost certainly will too, once it becomes politically expedient- after all we haven't sanctioned them and they haven't sanctioned us for precisely that reason)

... "I find the talk of Russia shooting itself in the foot over [counter] sanctions rather amusing, frankly [..] That they [Euros] were dumb enough and had enough hubris to think there wouldn't be blowback [..] Overall, nice work , EU, now aim the shotgun at the other foot" It's still about the counter sanctions, and the assumption from the west that Russia would not do counter sanctions. Says nothing at all about whether western sanctions would be effective. Sheesh, I even use the same metaphor as bookends, connected entirely by agricultural based stuff. Oh, I said that stuff. We'll find out who's correct in a year. Tell you what, I'll even put 'money' where mouth is in bet form. If Russia is out of reserves within a year I'll change my avatar to an ostrich, for a year. I'm confident enough that I'll do so even if you don't match me. Still, I invite you to match that pledge, for if it's longer than a year. Oh ffs, if you insist and since this is at least relevant to something I have said instead of your imagination. Your figure, 30% price increase. My figure 100% increase due to exchange rate. Mr Kudrin, 40% of that due to sanctions which I'll assume is accurate for these purposes*, note bottom. Imports would still be 30% more expensive than the price increase even with that. That's why it's irrelevant, imported food would still be baseline 30% more expensive and could not do anything other than raise prices further if imports continued. That really is basic maths. Oh, and since I'm wasting time on your links: "Russia is poised to exhaust its two reserve funds in 18 months if oil prices stay at around current levels of $50 a barrel." Your own link contradicts your 6-12 months figure... "Russia will import 40 percent less foreign goods, which will contribute to the ruble’s stabilization. Russia’s currency, which has depreciated by at least 40 percent this year, will likely stabilize at the beginning of 2015 at its current levels, according to Kudrin." Ah, so he says reducing imports helps the currency. And what do the counter sanctions do? Yep, reduce imports. I really hope that isn't where the 40% figure you quoted comes from though. (*)Cannot find a reference to 40% of the currency drop being due to sanctions in either of those links and The FT link is borked in your post here so I cannot check, as you've C&Ped the abbreviatory elliptics into it- plus it's regwalled- so I'd request the direct C&P quote from that article where he says it.

Yes, I agree pretty much totally- it's certainly lying as he was factually incorrect. As you say, exaggeration is definitely a form of lying. But, I'd say that exaggeration is one of the most common and mildest forms of lying as well as one of the more understandable ones. I know I've done it plenty, both consciously and unconsciously. And you do quite often believe that the exaggeration is true yourself, that the fish really was that big.

Guillotine Gun? My mind, it boggled. Not sure if I'm disappointed or not that it's just a gunblade analogue, I was sort of hoping for a gun that actually fired Guillotines. Still, as a side effect I know about the might actually have been real Chinese 'Flying Guillotine', which I'm sure will be useful in future.

heh. I'll reproduce, emphasis added: Obviously about the counter sanctions since everything said is about agriculture (with one exception)- which are the Russian counter sanctions on the west, not western sanctions on Russia. The only other reference is to Boeing supplying aircraft and that not being subject to sanctions- which is completely accurate, Boeing is not covered by US sanctions. You could, possibly claim that I implied Airbus were covered, except for the if. So, about a dozen references to agriculture, and one to a specific part of the general sanctions where I was perfectly accurate about what was not being sanctioned.

Utterly irrelevant. And also from June 2014, before second major sanctions. Nope. Again, from June 2014 and again it's irrelevant to the subject at hand. Arguably a good further example of Yellow Journalism though, since the problem kg had was relying on analysis from 'experts' who didn't explain why pipeline costs should be levied against the Chinese deal but any Euro ones should assume the infrastructure was created by pipeline fairies for free. Which is rather like relying on 'experts' who insist that a 30% rise in food costs could be solved by imports when a halving of exchange rate means import prices would have gone up 100%... Another link to one of your posts, not mine. Oddly enough Bester disputes your point but I don't, except in the context of Russian counter sanctions. FTR: I don't have any sockpuppets, let alone one as low quality as Bester. Yep, proves I was talking about agricultural sanctions, per above. You know, the ones that have had no effect on prices as prices have risen less than the exchange rate would mandate if imported. Links to something Wals said, but since I'm charitable I scrolled down. Wow, a semantic dispute about what constitutes a 'current project'. Credit where it's due, that is actually about sanctions and is from later than August last year which is a massive improvement on the others but it does not change the fundamentals- indeed, what both kgambit and I said were compatible as we both agreed there would be no new projects. And I was correcting well known pro US, anti Russia shill oby initially there. Give kg his credit though, he's far, far better at this than you are- and far more honest about it to boot. Hooray for context stripping. To remind people, you were saying that Russia would be out of reserves in "six months to a year at current rate of spending". I handily refuted the "current rate of spending" pages back, now there's nothing else to do but set the alarm clock for early August- Feb 2015/6 and see whose experts were right, mine saying 18 months to two years or yours saying max a year. Whoever is wrong can feel free to admit they were an ostrich. You still haven't shown where I said that sanctions wouldn't hurt, only that the counter sanctions wouldn't hurt significantly. Until you do this is irrelevant and is rebuttal of your own imagination, not me.

Don't hold your breathe if you expect the left to be the ones to do it. If there is a push back; it'll be from the right. The Gamergate political compass survey was pretty left dominated- not as much as it was libertarian dominated but maybe 3:1 ratio. Though of course that may not be relevant/ directly applicable for universities and the like where most students (by far) are militantly uninterested in university politics- and PC's methodology may not be wholly unbiased- it does suggest that GG at least has been push back from the left. In any case the best approach is to just ignore the left right label and treat it entirely as an authoritarian/ libertarian axis thing. As much as is possible at least- says the guy who was describing Breitbart as at best enemy of an enemy a page ago.

Grom, your entire premise rests on you proving I said that Russia's economy would be fine, and providing the context. Post Proof Or Retract, Put Up Or Shut Up. No quotes -> Weasel and you arguing with your own imagination. Which logically means the ostrich/ loon hybrid is... you; I guess sub conscious self awareness is better than no self awareness. And yes, timing and quotes/ cites do matter as it provides crucial context and prevents selective. To illustrate: I could dig up posts from people saying that the 'ATO' would be over in August last year with Ukrainian victory. Well, clearly all those people must be ostriches, as it ain't over and Ukraine has lost lots of territory since then. Nope. Anyone who said something like "this will be over in weeks unless Russia intervenes" was correct, broadly speaking and certainly in the consensus of opinion; that is why context and quoting is crucial- and why I suspect you're so frightened of providing actual quotes, you're just regurgitating the first part with no qualifier. If I claimed Joe Bloggs said "this will be over in weeks" and he actually said "this will be over in weeks unless Russia intervenes" I'd be the Weasel because I'm saying he said what I would like him to have said, not what he actually said. But it isn't me doing that. Anyway, since you're clearly not going to provide actual quotes discussion should probably go back to what is happening in Ukraine, where the ceasefire seems to be holding. Or about as well as the last one did, only with Debaltsevo instead of Donetsk Airport (which the UA should have withdrawn from under the first ceasefire conditions but didn't)

This reminds me that while Ken Levine didn't criticise games journalists for the SVU thing he did have one of the better responses to it: (minor sexy lady warning on his link; would probably get a KaineParker thread shut down)

Nope. You've asserted what my opinion is without evidence and are busy 'refuting' that with your 'proofs'. Here's how it works, you find posts that illustrate what my view is, and quote them. Until and unless you do that you're just arguing with your own imagination. For example, these are your assertions from the last two pages: Where?* Where?* Which ostrich routine, where**? Hmm, maybe ostrich means I actually didn't actually reply at all... Which would mean you really are arguing with your imagination. Ah, proof, at last! Except... it's a link to one of your own posts and there ain't a relevant post of mine within pages. Well, except the one I've already proved I'm right about. Actually respond with some proof, links, evidence or whatever that I've said what you claim and what (you think) my views are. Until you do that you've been Weaseling and/ or Strawmanning; repeatedly 'refuting' something I've apparently only said in your own mind. Sheesh, I'm not even clear on what you think I've said due to your lack of actual quotes so even if I wanted to 'refute' your imagination there is, literally, no way to do so. So no, I'm not going to respond to you refuting an imaginary me, it's both pointless and enabling. Come back with the quotes from me and I'll clarify or defend them, I may even admit that I was wrong as that has been known to happen. Without those quotes though... well, no point. *Dates here are significant, too, as: **Oh, June 2014, before the main bank of sanctions in August and before the Russian counter sanctions you were insisting have raised prices independent of the exchange rate. Even if you could provide cites you'd be assuming I'm prescient about those future sanctions.

Probably should be noted that he is, iirc, a former WoW developer, albeit main designer of vanilla. I can't see many currently involved industry people except perhaps some of the east europeans saying something so critical of the press since they mainly want them on their side still.

le sigh. They have a near trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund- I did kind of mention it. With a population of, what, 5 (?) million that gives the best part of 200,000 USD per capita in reserves. And really, it's your example, you should at least have some basic knowledge if you're going to try and prove a point with it instead of relying on me all the time. As for other countries that depend on oil they either have major other historic problems and currencies that were already severely depressed/ controlled (Venezuela, Nigeria; which has dropped by roughly a third from their already low level anyway) or they're gulf (or equivalent like Brunei) states that have massive cash reserves (both absolute and p/capita) and, most importantly, very cheap production costs that mean they make money even at $50 a barrel. And still no links to me saying what you claim. Well, if you can't win an argument any other way making up stuff you wished the other guy said is one way... well no, it really isn't. Post Proof or Retract, Put Up Or Shut Up etc etc. Until you do, it's classic strawman. If you do actually bother to look- and I suspect you have and just plain didn't find what you wanted- you'd probably find something along the lines of what Gorgon posted a few posts above: the sanctions won't do anything to stop Putin because he sees Ukraine as being existential to Russia. It would explain things if you simply stopped reading at 'anything' and then built your entire premise on that, though.

I think the point is more that Kotick would laugh in Walker's face then (metaphorically) drive off in his gold plated Bugatti Veyron if asked those style questions; or never give the interview in the first place rather than Kotick not deserving any criticism. Molyneux is an easy target as he has no credibility to destroy and no power whatsoever, one of his major problems has always been that he does answer questions and has a distinct tendency to over egg his responses and promises, so it is easy to ask those questions of him. It would be significant if Walker asked the 'hard questions' of someone with actual power or who he actually likes, but I find it difficult to see him asking, say, Tim Schafer if Starbase wotsit etc makes him a pathological liar.

Bruce, dear fellow, you agreeing with me is one of the things that would get me to question whether I was right. Fortunately, your opinion just reinforces that I am accurate. Gromnir know! Gromnir not need to prove! Man, what an utter, utter cop out. You asserted so either provide the evidence that I said what you claimed- or admit you're a Weasel and in future refrain from asserting what you cannot prove. Since you brought up Norway: here's the graph of the krone over 1 year. It too mirrors the oil rate pretty closely, without sanctions. There are a few articles about it, but the big difference is that Norway is a small country of a few million with the best part of 1 trillion dollars in its sovereign wealth fund. And yet they still saw their currency tank. You can't pick a good example to save yourself.

So far- for some reason- you've linked to what you've said only and the sole semi relevant post by me nearby was stating that Russian counter sanctions would have minimal effect on Russia and more on the producers sanctioned. Which you have spectacularly and utterly failed to show was incorrect. All you're doing now is mere assertion that I said something you want me to have said. I see no reason to respond to your strawmanning with anything other than simply ignoring it. It is, after all, quite easy to use the 'quote' function or links to show what someone actually said, indeed I do so below. You want to show what I actually said instead of what Grommy's mind version of zor said- then I'll defend or clarify my views. So let's recap what you've actually and provably said before you started, again, digging up the goalposts and shifting them/ making assertions with no proof. At current rate of spending- your words, not mine; your fault, not mine- reserves will last far, far longer because the current burn rate is around 10 billion a month and they have 376 billion in reserves. I'd be perfectly happy with the general consensus of 18 months to 2 years, but you had to go all in on hyperbole- even when given the opportunity to clarify you doubled down, cutting it to the least optimistic six months. Followed by laughable economic ignorance about the exchange rate's effects, utterly laughable. That it is apparently mirrored by 'experts' is no real excuse- it just shows a lack of critical faculty and need to appeal to/ kowtow to authority. Fundamentally, you have to show how having western food imports would improve prices and you simply cannot due to the exchange rate change. FFS, even imports from non sanctioned countries like Brazil will have increased in price because of the exchange rate. I'll throw in a complementary extra illustration: Bloomberg chart of rouble to oil prices- sanctions and counter sanctions applied March and August. As anyone can see sanctions had sweet asterisk all effect, the exchange rate almost perfectly matches oil prices- which is independent of sanctions.

Dunno, she's making 12k (?) on patreon per month. If I were on 144k USD p/a because of some twitter warrioring I wouldn't care even slightly if I came off as nutty as squirrel poo. If it is madness, yet there is method to it- to paraphrase Polonius. Yeah, it really doesn't matter at all if she's trans, even less so than that Milo's gay. It's far more important that she's done some distinctly questionable things to get her profile up such as sockpuppeting abusive twitter accounts or (almost certainly) faking fleeing her home. Breitbart is pretty terrible. They are, broadly speaking, on 'our' side but it's an alliance of convenience primarily and simply being on 'our' side doesn't make them not terrible; it's more an 'enemy of our enemy' situation.

That's called projection, bro. I replied to your points and refuted them, you didn't quote my replies because you have nothing to refute with. You picked stupid examples. You asserted that the import bans were hurting Russia more than Europe using the most shonky of logic and not taking the most basic of factors into account; you asserted that Russia would run out of reserves in six months because it's the worst case scenario from a hack piece. You've done it to yourself. And yeah, it is Yellow Journalism when they do things like, on one hand, talk about a large currency devaluation while implying prices would still be the same if they were importing. Because obviously, if they are importing whether non sanctioned Chinese pork or US/ Dutch/ Canadian the price increase of the imported pork would be governed by exchange rate. That's barely even economics 101 and I can only assume it is done deliberately because the alternative is that the writers for wsj forbes etc are utter, abject morons. Or maybe so US centric that they've forgotten there are exchange rates or... well, I don't know at all. None of the interpretations are charitable though.

It isn't really relevant, but since I dislike incorrect info almost pathologically and he is doing himself what he accuses others of doing: sauce So EA does own the IP, it is only the trademark to Wasteland (2) that InExile owns.

Top quote is from Grommy's previous post. yep, someone is speaking nonsense, but it ain't me. You're also woefully... innaccurate, shall we say, on the reason for the large food price increases, as I will illustrate below. Yes, such a good example. Along with oats/ porridge you picked two things that Russia produces massive amounts of domestically, and the one you chose to focus on is a luxury item. OK, not a luxury in the US where it's added to everything under the sun since high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than water, but you don't actually need to do that and it isn't actually a staple- it's just corporate welfare that is coincidentally killing rather a lot of people from obesity related diseases. In any case you picked the examples, I didn't, and they're supposed to help your point, not mine. That they were stupid examples that don't illustrate what you thought they did is not my fault, it's yours because you picked them. Meh, your shtick is making you literally incoherent. Let us do an illustration- it's simplistic, but it'll do as an illustration. Russia sells oats at the market price, $1000 a ton. Its exchange rate is 50/USD. The producer gets 50000 roubles. Now, the exchange rate is 100/USD. The producer gets 100000 roubles for exporting it. If, instead, it was imported from the west --------it would still cost 100000 roubles-------- as that is governed by exchange rate. It would cost exactly the same and thus counter sanctions make no effective difference because import prices link to exchange rate. The domestic price might theoretically stay the same, except, of course, they can now export it for twice the amount, hence domestic price increases. And wow, 30% price increase for wheat over 50% currency devaluation, that's less than expected if they were importing wheat- another stellar example you've picked for yourself. To reiterate: if they were importing from Europe it would not help because the exchange rate would still increase prices 50% (~per reality) or 100% per example. And the currency collapse doing the damage was related to the drop in oil prices, not agricultural sanctions on the west- even you admit that. Nope, I said that economic sanctions would not severely impact Russia. The oil price is independent of the sanctions and unrelated to them, it's Saudi taking a dump on frackers. I am, however, sure you'll provide a link to where I said that later in your post. Indeed, I'll reorganise the quotes so your link follows Y'know, I was actually expecting this to be a link at least to one of my posts, or at least one of yours I replied to- instead it's to one of your posts showing your (to be charitable) cognitive dissonance has lasted six months and the only relevant post by me within pages is before yours and says nothing at all about oil prices or Russia's dependence on them but is about the agricultural counter sanctions. Oh my god, the WSJ, that changes everything! Scales fall from my eyes and I repent my apostacy and beg forgiveness at the altar of Rupert! The cite I made was two years just on their liquid assets, and it isn't anywhere near pro Russian, and there are multiple, non Russian sources saying the same, eg Moody's. Murdoch's Yellow Journalism. Right, so let's say that the consequence of not being able to refinance those loans is that Russian firms default. So, when Euros are packing their pants about Greece defaulting on ~550 odd billion somehow 600 billion is chump change that won't effect them because Gromnir says such things will only effect Russia... Hmm, OK. Right, so they've declined ~$150 billion over 18 months, plus about 20 billion over the past two months (pending updates), so fairly steadily. I can see how you think they'll run out of money in six further months on that trend with 'only' $380 billion left, because 6x10 does, after all, equal 380. Sheesh, even at double that rate it's still 18 months worth of reserves. And still has most to do with oil prices and currency speculation (fuelled by Yellow Journalism talking things down, heh) and little to nothing to do with the counter sanctions.

Not sure where you're even getting that; it looks more like a RTwP ToEE. The only similarities I see are in the setting and the perspective. ToEE is SP only, TB, 2d. This game is SP/MP, RTwP, 3d and has a DM mode plus mod tools. That sounds (and looks from the thumbnails) a whole lot more NWN than ToEE, even if TB/RT is ignored.

Lol. Even your yellow journalists have it lasting 18 months to two years, as does simple maths. Exempli, in this case actually, gratia. They even pull the "well actually it's only two years because they cannot convert some short term so will never convert it, yep, that's logic!" trick to get their two years, in true Yellow fashion. Generally the Russians have had the good sense not to defend their currency over much as that is what will eat through their reserves, and that is what is causing the price rises- not import bans on stuff Russia produces craploads (#1 producer, even) of themselves. Lol, sugar. I'm sure that high fructose corn syrup is an essential staple in some places as is sugar but you're actually far better off with as little of it as possible. Yes, I'm sure that ludicrously subsidised Sugar Beet sugar from Europe and the US is a major loss for Russia and not for the Euros/ US who are subsidising that inefficient garbage (cane >> beet) to the tune of millions. Oh noes, the Russians miss out on crappy luxuries, how will a country where only about 10% of people can actually afford crappy luxuries anyway cope? (and of course, roflcopters, we all know who is the largest sugar beet producer in the world, don't we? Next time anyone reads one of those "omg Russians will starve if they don't buy from US/ Europe!" garbage articles remember that, and that Russia produces about as much wheat as the US does too. Seriously, porridge and sugar, I couldn't have picked better examples for you if you were my sockpuppet.) The oil price is doing by far the most damage. But that ain't coming from anything the west has done, nor anything Russia has done. It's Saudi knocking the spigots out to damage their enemies- including all those US and Canadian companies stampeded towards fracking while assuming oil would stay above their $100/ barrel break even point. At $50 a barrel those guys are haemorrhaging money way, way faster than Russia. Meh, most westerners would curl up in a ball if someone took away their sugar for a day- but most of the world makes do perfectly well without much of it at all. Double meh, anything that could even theoretically kill off the ridiculous corporate welfare (in the US) or grossly inefficient agricultural butressing (in Euroland) of subsidies is to be applauded. Triple meh, we'll keep selling our stuff to the Russkies, just won't publicise it much.