Zoraptor

How long was Starcraft: Ghost in development as well, that must have been about seven years as well. Good thing Blizzard's released titles tend to well financially...

Not really, or at least not significantly. It's the so- and laughably- called 'moderate sunni states'* (plus Turkey) currently partaking in the bombing that did by far the most training and arming of rebels, and who actively encouraged their own wacky bands of religious nutbars by preferentially arming them. Ironically, they're still fighting proxy wars in Libya against each other even as they 'cooperate' in bombing Syria, but they're the last people- even behind Israel and the US- who should be intervening anywhere in the middle east if you want anything approaching a progressive, inclusive end result. The oil can't run out fast enough so they can be cut loose and go back to being medieval totalitarian irrelevancies. Wonder how long it will take for Saudi tanks to roll into Yemen. They've already bombed shia rebels previous, having them running Sana'a won't be tolerated long given their response in Manama. *Bahrain, a sunni emirate ruling majority shia via oppression and having 6000 Saudi troops on call for any required liquidations; Saudi Arabia, largest exporter and financier of terrorism anywhere, run by Salafi/ Wahhabi extremists (same as ISIS, Al-Q, they just went off reservation and don't recognise KSA's obvious superiority) intent on exporting their medieval philosophy everywhere possible, plus the UAE and Qatar, who along with KSA primarily funded and trained ISIS as well as fighting each other by proxy in Libya. The only moderate state in that group is Jordan, and they've always been compliant in recognition of the Brits establishing the current Hashemite monarchy during the Sykes-Picot years, without that they'd be an irrelevant province in some other country.

Nope, what makes someone gay is, well, being gay, that doesn't matter whether you're poor or rich. But a reasonable amount of money is a factor that makes someone more likely to be 'socially aware'.

She was imagining you were Vladimir Vladimirovich- and he wouldn't care about any puny scratches. ('Scratched the **** out of me' might explain some people's intense butthurt about things Russian though...) I don't think that issue has anything significant to do with information overload type stuff, it's far more likely that most Russians just plain don't care about LGBT issues much at all, and most of those who do are anti rather than pro. Russia is both conservative and not particularly rich, the average Russian is unlikely to spend much time being a SJW on the internet because they're busy doing other things and caring about other things, don't access the internet etc. The only play it has is with regards to a 'decadent west trying to subvert brave Russia' narrative, and anything can be spun that way; though in this case it is certainly counter productive to give direct ammunition for such an interpretation. But overall social activism is very much a fundamental of being rich (relatively), bored, 'liberal' and middle class.

Buy Victoria II, install PDM, never go back to EUIV. Problem solved. Or not, as Tigranes says abstraction is inevitable and there's plenty in Vic II as well. EU is a game that unfolds over hundreds of years, if it were possible to achieve goals in fifty years people would end the game in 1500 rather than 1800 because if there's one thing that really is boring in an EU game it's having a large, unassailable empire and nothing much more to do with it. If you sweat the amount of in game time something takes it probably is not the game for you whatever else, it's simply a slow game in terms of in game time. I always found it annoying that so much of the modelling of important stuff was abstracted and that things that happened historically were effectively impossible to achieve in game, and they were typically the really big and significant ones like the Ottos conquering the Mamelukes in a couple of years and thus becoming the power in the eastern Med for two centuries or are handled by unique mechanics that don't apply elsewhere (typical for something like the Burgundy succession, though more often found in mods). There is a choice between determinism and mimicing history because it happened and a more organic approach, both have disadvantages- I still remember well in EU2 a single province Poland sacked Moscow because that is what happened historically. The whole thing is also not helped by Paradox's current obsession with catering to the 20% of their customer base that has ever played MP and balancing things for MP only (or not balancing/ testing at all), which is where the super long truces come from.

I'll let you into a secret- I'm not even slightly worried about disagreeing with you as I don't value your opinions at all. I call it trolling because telling someone they should 'appreciate'- your word- their country being bombed is trolling, plain and simple.

Not at all, you just bitter because NATO bombed some sense into Serbia. But this prevented you guys from committing even more acts of genocide. You really don't seem to appreciate what NATO did for your country, imagine what would have happened if the Bosnian war had been to allowed continue? Imagine how many additional Serbs would be facing war crimes in the Hague, trust me Sarex NATO did Serbia a favour by ending the war. It may not seem like it but NATO intervention was the best long term strategy for stability of the whole region Trolling is bad enough but telling someone who may well have had friends or relatives 'liberated, from life' by your good friends in NATO and telling them that they should be grateful for it- again, and again, no less- is bad taste at best and is- absolutely- the definition of trolling for a response. It's also boring, lazy and- sadly- utterly par for the course, for you.

Read Shirer's book (indeed, it's on the bookshelf), not sure that that will surprise too many. Lol, I know that capitalists like deflecting their wrong doings away from themselves and have to insist that nazis were socialists as a desperate crutch to hold off the inevitable tide of reality- still waiting for a defence of the capitalist utopia of drug pushing starvation ridden Raj India, btw- but what they call themselves is utterly irrelevant*. I also wouldn't describe myself as socialist (nor do I come out as one on the various political compass type tests, way too far on the libertarian scale), I just like accurate descriptions and picking holes in the arguments of True Believers. Sheesh one nazi successor state was the German Democratic Republic, so by the same logic I've just 'proved' that democracy and Republics suck hard vacuum.

Not because they regarded themselves as socialist though, it was a branding exercise entirely aimed at attractinglower socio economic people. And again, the socialist wing of the nsdap got liquidated faster than any other group. And again, Democratic People's Republic of Korea shows how what people call themselves has no relevance. No they didn't. They were opposed in some circumstances based on being authoritarian and not wanting challenges to their power, and from being a racist and supremacist ideology. They were not philosophically or practically opposed except to those they didn't like for those other reasons. A rich Jew was at risk of having his stuff seized, a rich German- so long as he didn't rock the boat- was fine and could accumulate wealth to his heart's content. (Somehow I expect I'm going to be told that authoritarianism is a fundamentally leftist tenet, Pinochet et alia be damned) There ain't a single 'capitalist' society that doesn't do that, only the extent differs. Mostly with agriculture rather than industry, but there's tons of pork barrel politics everywhere. In any case though, that was primarily to do with nazis being authoritarian and running their economy on a permanent low grade war footing than being socialist.

Meh, that's exactly right when you have people insisting that nazis were socialists because their world view demands everything evil must be socialist and everything good must be capitalist. Extremists going to extreme, and will always insist that they're not. You'd think that the nazis were redistributing wealth from Jews to poor people rather than just seizing it for themselves or selling it off to cronies and that Ferdinand Porsche et alia were just code names for collectivist communes given the way some go on. Watching dedicated -ists pat each other on the back and agree that they see things clearly is always amusing though. (Still waiting for someone to spin selling dope to China while the people growing it starve as being all due to socialism. I'll give you a hand guys- if only those Indians had worked harder and educated themselves, put themselves through college and established their own businesses they'd all have been fine...)

Oh yippee, someone who thinks the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic, has to be they called it democratic NSDAP was socialist because they call themselves that, it's been at least six weeks since the last one. What next, using Vladimir Zhirinovsky's/ Russia's 'Liberal' Party as the case study in liberalism, or RSA's Conservative Party as the study in conservatism? Anyone with a skerrick, a smidge, an iota of actual knowledge not mired in deliberate ideological head-in-sand obtuseness knows that the first thing Hitler did once power was secure was liquidate the socialist arm of the NSDAP (SA/ SturmArbeitlung, Ernst Rohm et alia) in the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler hated socialists, much as with Stalin he was willing to tolerate them short term to achieve his goals but then, as with Stalin, he stuck the knife in as soon as he could. Board veterans know what is coming next: Famines perpetrated by Britain in India while pushing massive amounts of drugs to China, in the name of 'free trade'. I await with anticipation the long list of justifications for why They Just Don't Count (but inevitably things like holodomor do, because teh socilaism!!!!).

I have to admit, I find people who believe that the flaws of capitalism are all because of its imperfect implementation and that if it were perfectly implemented everything would be Great as amusing as people* who say that the flaws of communism (or any other -ism really) were all about its imperfect implementation, and that if it were perfectly implemented it would be Great. They're both circular/ sophist arguments- by those metrics any flaw has to be due to implementation, rather than being an inherent problem. The only effect is the rhetorical one that it makes the concept itself impossible to criticise (theoretically, if accepted) since any criticism is aimed at the imperfections and not the perfect concept. But it is pointless outside of rhetoric, because you can do the exact same thing for any concept, as above. *put oby on temporary hiatus and bring back Lord of Flies, just for this thread and as an illustration.

... If that's really an IMF letter I'd suggest they go back to school to learn how to write proper formal correspondence. Plus it has the most pointless redactions ever, I spent literally no time wondering who Ms X Lagarde head of the IMF and Mr Arseniy Y_k 'PM' of Ukraine were. And I see that those fine democrats in Kiev, not content with disbanding rival political parties are now moving to have 'loyalty and corruption tests' for 'government employees' (oddly enough targeting anyone suspected of being sympathetic to the Communists or PoR; sure it's a coincidence that their kleptocrats like Tymoshenko are exempt), passed after the guy who disbanded the opposition party by fiat, ex putsch 'President' Turchenov, said he wouldn't allow members to leave the Rada without it being passed. So nice to see democracy in action, purges, disbanding parties- for being 'too small'; the Communists got more votes than Svoboda so go figure- lock ins, and the complete lack of triumphalism and total focus on reconciliation. Oh, and for some odd reason the beeb et alia keep reporting that the east has been offered autonomy or devolution or something without mentioning it's for three years, rather than being permanent. Must have got some of those Polish weapons though, they're talking up the military response again, just like after the last ceasefire. 'Democratic and western orientated', roflcopters.

And a Dx12 exclusive; with integrated Skype support. Make it require kinect too, that way you get forced OS and hardware upgrade paths.

Please don't bring this up any more, it's deeply embarrassing to be associated with the type of people who think EA with their day 1 DLC and Origin is worse than the sort of crap BoA and the other perennial contenders pulled and continue to pull. Makes gamers look like a bunch of entitled massively out of perspective zealots, and is just plain cringe inducing. oh, and don't argue with Volo, there's no pastime less constructive.

I'd find it pretty funny if Scotland voted yes, and pretty much all the English people I know would vote yes if they could vote which is pretty telling of how much the Scots are disliked. Not absolutely sure that Cameron doesn't want them to go either, him, Clegg and Milliband going to Scotland must be worth a few votes for the yes camp and it would make the tories winning the next election a lot more likely. Too bad you didn't stop the Croatian genocidal tendencies, but hey I guess you need to pick a side in every conflict. And Churchill's Bengal famine killed about an order of magnitude more people than the whole Yugoslav conflict, in a year, and well within living memory. (Yes yes Monte, chippy colonial. De pop your monocle and pour yourself a pink gin to get over the temerity of it all.)

Sure, but the fact of the matter is that there are (afaik) no unidentified traces on the shawl, and the only obtained sample matches a relative of a suspect. So unless there's something murky with the relative etc. We'll see. You have to follow scientific methodologies to be scientifically valid. It's not merely peer review, you should also get results confirmed independently, which clearly hasn't happened. Might be a question of putting 'yet' on the end of that sentence but there are more than a few ways to get bad results (entirely honestly) when doing things by yourself. The whole thing sounds decidedly shonky, especially since there is a book about to be published. If you've spent 14 years working on it you can arrange a second lab check within that time, no problem. Wouldn't be a shortage of labs willing to do it.

InternetAristocrat == Genghis Khan Adam Baldwin == Timur TotalBiscuit == Subotai 4chan == Mongolians Reddit == Tartars You == just another keshik, pillaging the civilised world and bringing an age of darkness to all that is right. Who will it be, throwing the plague infested body into Kaffa? Who will pile the skulls of SJWs outside their burning cities? You know you have committed such crimes, in your hearts.

It's simply not relevant information. It was a table of stats from a survey, providing refutation of "90% of people will tell you how much they sux". Not 90% of people in the future, not 90% of young people, not 90% of young educated people with a university degree, not 90% of people who agree with me; "90% of people". The distinctions you're trying to make are not relevant rebuttal. The demographic differences may be relevant to a/ other different argument(s)- eg that attitudes are changing- which is why they were provided by the survey team. But for current attitudes of the people overall, they are utterly irrelevant. To illustrate, there are only three alternatives interpretations possible and such demographic information is irrelevant in each. Either 'people' refers to a country, ie 90% of countries, or it refers to 90% of individuals in each country, or it refers to 90% of individuals irrespective of country. In all three interpretations the assertion is debunked wholly and solely by raw survey data, since specific demographic examination is not required to determine the relevant results so long as proper methodology is used. Now, you can try to massage the stats and slap caveats like "in the future" or "but educated people", but that is just a sop to protect (incorrect) preconceived notions, and has no rigour whatsoever beyond being a defence of what you want to be true.

In order for something to be theft you must deprive the original owner of it; "dishonest appropriation of another's property with intent to permanently deprive them of it" OED, Mirriam Webster "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it ". If you duplicate something, even if it's unauthorised, then it cannot be theft since the original owner still has the original. Calling it theft is technically as incorrect as calling it rape, it's just a less emotive comparison. It's unauthorised distribution of copyright material, and probably some sort of computer crime (hacking) for the initial access. Arguably, in identity theft the owner is deprived of use of their identity due to having their credit rating trashed and the rest of the stuff that typically happens, so the usage there is a lot fairer and more arguable.

Yes, because excluding those over 65 and the less educated would be totally fair, only young educated people who agree with one's preconceived notions count. One just wishes one could find a way to exclude them from voting as well. Well, there is no reason to exclude them, and their views are as relevant as anyone else's are for whether 90% of people are glad ("Final (sic) word on that - ask people in post soviet block how they feel about them - 90% of people will tell you how much they sux,") that the USSR broke up. You haven't even picked holes- indeed, you can make a more valid* argument for excluding those negative voting young people as at least the older ones have something to compare against while the young ones don't. It's exactly what you did last time with stats, try to exclude everything that disagreed with you as irrelevant. And that's not how stats work, I'm afraid. *which is still invalid, it's just less arbitrary

You really need to chillout, man. If you're admitting that you can make a fairly extensive list of places that benefited from being in the USSR/ soviet bloc then your 90% claim is already cooked, and you're just agreeing that it is. Best not to over egg the pudding in the first place, certainly best not to keep cracking them.

If that really amuses you you should check out his back catalogue, there's plenty more there. I just wish he'd change up his shtick.

Yes, there's independent confirmation for two at least. OTOH, two of the initial 'suspects' appear not to have been involved at all, so it's a 50-50 strike rate either way. Okay I checked it and this is not true. Orogun's is a garbled version of an infographic of what happened at Night Games, which was run by one of ZQ's alleged romantic liasons. Not one of the more inherently convincing accusations, certainly.

People doing the comparisons to ISIS and saying that threatening to kill ten year olds are OK are doing so as satire and deliberate irony. Yes, it is known. I refuse to accept any alternative interpretations, for sake of my own sanity. Can't say I'm surprised Vavra is commenting, they clearly got metric asterisktons of SJW crap over the male protagonist/ predominant whiteys issues, in their medieval central European history based game of all things- and I wasn't even really following the game to see that much of it.