Zoraptor

For once I agree almost entirely with obyknven. Tymoshenko got into politics for the same basic reason Berlusconi did, to make sure she didn't get prosecuted for corruption in her gas dealings. Yanukovich is neither better nor worse seeing as he is basically Kuchma jr, but at least his deal with the Russians got the Ukraine a lot of cash, better than the pittance Brussels offered. The whole situation is replete with ironies, the protesters are complaining about the constitution giving the president too much power. Oddly enough it was brought in by their previous darling Viktor Yuchenko and only became a problem now it isn't their guy in office. Yeah, most of western Ukraine. But let's be frank here, Yanukovich got more vote % than, say, Margaret Thatcher ever got (by a very large margin) and won by almost the same margin that Obama beat Romney by. If they have a mandate then so does he. It's much like the situation in Thailand, the minority is throwing a wobbly and trying to impose their views on the majority. I'm frequently told that the right time to dispute decisions is at an election, indeed most western politicos will happily do whatever they want in office no matter what they promised and that's precisely what their defenders will say. Yes. Quite.

Well yeah, I would categorise a good troll as being a productive thing. It doesn't have to be productive in terms of making people think or reconsider stuff, it can be productive in terms of simply thinking it's funny. In terms of having a different world view, that's rather more difficult to quantify because with a good troll you're often not quite sure exactly what the person's view is. In that sense it is very similar to satire/ irony/ sarcasm in that it's a technique used to show 'disagreement' without necessarily indicating an alternative. I have seen trolling which runs counter to my general beliefs and still thought that it is effective, but then I'm not usually a good target for trolling myself since I at least try not to take things too seriously already.

I'd tend to agree that most trolling is negative or 'bad', but that is also at least partly because people tend to label stuff they simply don't like as trolling. If I were to write a perfectly sensible list of things wrong with, say, Oblivion, and then go and post that on the Bethboards a large proportion of people there would think I was trolling no matter what my actual intention was. In terms of good trolling I'd actually go back to the Tali Sweat Analysis post. I don't really know or care what the initial reason for that post was and whether it was intended as trolling, but if I had made that post it would have had two purposes. Firstly, to make anyone who is really obsessive about such things look a little silly by taking it seriously; and secondly to make the people who get upset at other people's obsessions look silly by taking seriously a post that wasn't serious. And yep, I'd say that Poe's Law is a pretty good match for most good trolling. I'd say that most good trolling uses 'soft' provocativeness. The internet equivalent of, say, walking up to someone and slapping them is bad trolling, pretty much by definition. I'd view being provocative in this context to be more similar to how films and the like can be provocative. I wouldn't say that trolling is a particularly effective way to get an argument across though, but... when it comes right down to it convincing someone they're being silly, or 'winning' an argument on the internet by any means is usually an uphill battle- and, of course, a matter of opinion as to whether it's silly/ wrong in the first place, most often.

Yep. Can only imagine what the response would be if protesters killed a bunch of police in the US/ UK or Europe while trying to topple the democratically elected president, pretty sure it would be slightly different in tone from the US and EU's current pronouncements on the situation.

Irrational is already pretty gutted on the senior people front. Just about all of them apart from KL left during B:I's development, and it clearly had a troubled development. I'd be moderately surprised if Levine were still at 2k in a year's time, personally, the whole thing reads like spin. Indeed, I'm not really sure from whose point of view any contract may be being worked out. $200 million USD (sorry, original NYT article is now paywalled) was the supposed budget, even 4 million digital sales through their own portal would barely turn a profit for 2k. You'd have to suspect that the actual break even point would be multiple millions more, perhaps as many as 7 million full price copies. They'd have lost a fairly significant amount of money on 4 million sales if the 200 million cost is accurate.

There's a difference between being tolerant and kowtowing to every viewpoint. You can allow people to worship in whatever manner they want/ say what they want, without agreeing with them or allowing them to inflict their views on anyone else- indeed, tolerance does not mean you have to keep your mouth shut when you disagree, just that you accept you don't have the right to force others to your viewpoint. The worst sort of intolerance is the sort that is dressed up in the vestments of tolerance, which claims to be doing stuff 'for the greater good' (the greater good), whether it be someone trying to save your eternal soul from damnation or something else. Oddly enough, Stephen Fry himself has one of the more widely quoted quotes on the matter and subject of people being 'offended'.

Apparently there is a drop in soda consumption, according to Coke's financial results. Probably the healthiest soda alternative is to just buy carbonated water and use a decent fruit concentrate for flavouring. It's always a bit difficult talking about buying healthy food because you're never sure how it is in other countries. Personally, if I were looking to eat healthily and cheaply I'd be cooking all my own food, buying big sacks of stuff like potatoes, onions and carrots as a base for most meals. They're all pretty healthy and available for roughly a dollar a kilogram. That's cheaper than buying pre prepared stuff, though it takes more time to prepare. Then again we also have a lot of advertorial type stuff on TV that is 'feed 4 for $15' or food in a minute type stuff which is completely voluntary, 'free' (ie provided by companies, not the govt), food education which I suspect is not typical.

Can't see it. 2k bought Irrational, it's one of their internal studios. Feargus Urquhart when he was running BIS would not have been able to just decide he wanted a break with a few close friends to chill and throw ideas at a whiteboard, nor any other subsidiary manager. At absolute minimum it would have to be done with the approval of the parent company- and the vast majority of the time it's the parent company spinning their decision to wind down a division by getting Someone Else apart from Herve Caen or Straus Zelnick to sugar coat the news. I'd almost suspect that there's a contract to be worked out, with regards to Levine. Unsurprising that B: I didn't sell that well though, 5 years and a massive advertising budget meant it would always be an uphill battle to break even.

Trolling is like art, you know it when you see it. Which probably sounds a bit glib, but it's about as accurate and categorical a statement as can be made about it. To be more specific, satire may be trolling and most good trolling involves a very large dollop of satire- but it's usually satire that is presented as being a serious position or statement. Same with either irony or sarcasm which for these purposes are just subsets/ techniques of satire. Trolling doesn't have to challenge a person's beliefs (beliefs is perhaps slightly the wrong word anyway) and certainly more regular techniques can be used to do the same, but I'd argue that good trolling has to have an element of that to be trolling at all. After all, if nobody cares then nobody responds, and that isn't really a troll.

You might think that, but I couldn't possibly comment. (Series 1 of the British House of Cards, and Cracker are probably my fondest remembered dramas of all time. Still haven't seen the US version. HoC that is, I did see the US version of Cracker, "Fitz", and it wasn't particularly good)

The majority of bad trolls are just noise though, as is most of the internet. With the greatest of respect to people who post such things, some random person on the internet talking about potty training their toddler or going out to lunch or how that guy on Days of Our Lives is totally hot or whatever is not fundamentally more worthwhile than someone saying that Planescape Torment sux because it is a jRPG that is worse than KOTOR (and they're an authority because they played KOTOR 7 times) for the hundredth time. They're both things that you tend to read and forget, unless you have some sort of investment in them. Yeah, there are really bad trolls who will do pretty despicable things, but then there are always 'bad' people who will do despicable things. Picketing a funeral because you think God is punishing America for its sin, and being serious about it, has exactly the same practical effect as doing the same thing 'for the lulz'.

EA Partners is now defunct, so KoA will be the last one for the forseeable future. (Titanfall is a similar set up to an EA Partners game, but is Origin exclusive)

Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette, Nickleback. Oh god yes. Listening to talk back radio after the All Blacks lose at rugby is a beautiful, beautiful thing. So many people whose lives have been literally ruined by 15 blokes from New Zealand failing to beat 15 blokes from somewhere else as if that actually means something to their life. (Unfortunately, if the ABs lose domestic violence complaints go up markedly...)

A good troll is a thing of beauty. It speaks to the human condition, it illuminates the darkness and is an integral option in ecommunication. A good troll is satire, it is well thought out, it is intelligent. A bad troll is a pointless exercise in futility; lazy, facile and worthless. Of course, you can say the same thing about any style of post on the internet, they range from a potential "oh wow, Road to Damascus the scales fall from my eyes" to "please give me that 15 seconds of life and 20 IQ points back". A good troll pokes the self righteous, self important and self serious streak everyone has, and commits the worst crime imaginable to those people- making them look silly. That isn't always possible to do with impeccable logic and Socratic method. People need to be trolled, on the internet and in real life. Everyone needs their fundamental beliefs challenged at various points, if for no reason other than to affirm that you still believe them. And if your fundamental beliefs include the sorts of trivialities that people typically get trolled over then... well, a bit of self examination would not go amiss about whether Pikachu really could take Darth Vader in a fight is a truly important argument to have.

I didn't said that it either A OR B kind of thing... and from the looks of it you made a huge mess of my comments(did you read older comments?) Thing is, you confirm what I say further down where you specifically state about it being done via direct taxation, ie a tax increase with a rebate for the poor people, or a direct tax levy on the 'well off' overweight. Both of which I specifically mentioned. Really though, you seem a bit confused about what you are saying, and your response to any criticism to it is just to restate it again and claim people are being 'negative'. Yep, that's exactly what I said. They aren't expensive, certainly not compared to the system you are proposing, and if you call them ineffective, well, the punitive taxes on cigarettes doesn't stop everyone from smoking either. Education campaigns work perfectly fine, you don't have to be a paternalist zealot espousing fundamental truths to the great unwashed when doing educational campaigns but you should start from the position that most people would like their children to be healthy, even if they don't care that much about themselves.

Be warned, psi is very difficult for a first play through, if you go pure psi. It then gets very easy once some of the higher tier powers are available. If you go hybrid with a few weapon skills it's a lot easier. Saving resources is the name of the game for a first play through as well, as you will run out of bullets or psi hypos on the second level most likely, and if you're not careful. Smack as much as you can with the wrench. Personally, I'd consider taking 1 skill in modify and maintenance at some point, if you plan on using ranged weapons but they're discretionary. Repair is close to useless.

Yes, everyone else is suggesting things of limited effectiveness and high cost while your suggestions of tax increase with rebates or whatever it was you came up with for not targeting the poor is both effective and low cost. Or not, seeing as it's a bureaucratic nightmare where you have people being weighed yearly or whatever to decide how much tax they pay. I'll give it more rebuttal than it deserves: it's a bureaucratic nightmare that will cost massively in admin, it will require people going to doctors or whatever once a year as an added cost*, they'll use crappy, simplistic but 'objective' metrics like BMI (which make extremely fit but muscle mass based sportsmen classify as obese), there will be loopholes, those who can afford accountants will be able to avoid it/ those with enough money will ignore it so it won't discourage those with money, it doesn't tackle the base problem at all but treats the symptom, if you have to claim the money back a lot of poorer people won't know how or that they can. There's an almost unlimited number of potential problems. Now, you might say that that is just nitpicking or whatever, but they are real potential problems. You cannot wish them away by saying that everything will be OK just because. That also isn't being negative when suggestions have been made to, for example, improve education around the issue, ie treating the problem rather than the symptom. I mean, from the examples I give below you don't have taxes applied for melanoma based on whether you're tanned or not when you visit the doctor, because there's a metric asteriskton of Other Stuff that contributes to those potential problems apart from being tanned. *Actually that is something I would support, just without the nanny tax attached. Most health problems are very much stitch-in-time situations, catch them early and they'll be a tiny fraction of the long term cost, that's how the various breast/ prostate/ bowel/ melanoma screening programs work.

The trouble with things like the WHO report and the way it is being used here is that it is, effectively, third hand information. The papers are written by a bunch of people, collated and interpreted by WHO, then a journalist comes along and writes his article. You don't, really. What you have are a lot of people who don't believe that 'tax it!' is the answer to the problem, or that it is the last thing to try rather than the first. You have had plenty of 'positive' alternative suggestions, not just nitpicking at the tax aspects.

Quote from CDPR's blog: They really aren't hipsters, but they certainly are PR savvy- that's why using one of those vile extortion joints to counter piracy was rather an odd misjudgement. All the stuff they say is aimed specifically at appealing to or growing their target audience. I have no doubt they would, for example, happily charge for DLC if they felt it was in their best interest, they'd just go old school and call them 'expansions' to make it more palatable. Can't say I really care much about it, companies will PR, it's part of what they do. If it happens to improve my experience and meet with my expectations that's certainly better than something that's PR and doesn't improve my experience or meet expectations.

ctrl+F11 and ctrl+F12 should lower/raise cpu speed emulation in dosbox, I believe.

Neverwinter Nights and Oblivion here. Probably the worst two games overall I've ever played too, and the only ones I can think of offhand that I actively dislike.

I tend to think of it in two ways. Firstly, it doesn't really do any harm. If it is an obsessive behaviour rather than just having fun at least it's an obsessive behaviour that harms no one else and doesn't do any real harm to the cosplayer either. As such it isn't really my business to be offended. Certainly there may be some people that I might, on balance and against my SNAGesque instincts, prefer did not dress up in skin tight or revealing outfits but then I'd probably think much the same if they were out on the town. Secondly, if I were to be offended by people dressing up as characters I'd probably have to be offended at the booth babe/ official models dressing up as characters as well, since the only real difference there is that they're getting paid. I do get a bit offended there on occasion, but mainly at the thought that someone out in marketing land thought "hmm, you're male, you like the ladies, therefore you'll buy our game because look: ladies!". I'd suspect that the vast majority of people literally don't care or don't care much either way about cosplay to be honest. It just seems a rather small thing for people to be upset about in the grand scheme of things.

Bro, my country is #1 in the perception of corruption- curse you, Danes, if only there'd been a Danish Viennese Pastries for votes scandal we'd be #1 alone! Indeed, we've been =#1 for every year that wiki article lists. I just happen to know that just because we're #1, the best and greatest, top of the pile etc doesn't actually mean we're perfect and could just mean we're collectively stupid or self righteous enough to think there isn't any corruption here, or that it doesn't really count or whatever. But I'm also far more concerned about fixing my own country than blowing my own trumpet and being holier-than-thou about how much better we are than all the grubby corruption riddled others. And I mainly wish that these Olympics were more about the sport instead of masturbatory, nationalistic superiority peddling from the supposedly quality western media and assorted others.

It has? The London Olympics went on about security and terrorism a lot and how it would be the safest games ever etc etc and I doubt many would characterise that as being PR emphasis (whole or otherwise) from Dave Central- except, maybe, the part regarding the G4S fiasco and their failure to, well, actually hire the security they were paid for. There's been lots of smoke and thunder from the usual 'sources' about how they're not saying there will definitely be a terrorist attack in Sochi that will kill and maim people, they're not saying that at all, they really, really hope the Russians are up to the task etc etc. And in other news, a report by opposition politicians in New Zealand found unequivocal proof that PM John Key is a big doody head and a lightweight who'd be drunk under the table by the leader of the opposition. Rebuilding towns is extremely expensive. The EU wastes 3 times the entire Sochi budget per year from corruption. The US has massive pork barrelling and subsidies to vested interests while their debt goes up and up. We have politicians who get parachuted into high paid directorships by companies who have benefited from said politicians' policies. And, most significantly, if there's been corruption in Sochi that's for the Russians to worry about, I, Steve Fry, Weird Al, Dolly Parton, Francois Hollande, Barry the petrol station attendant, 95%+ of the posters here and John McCain all have one thing in common- any corruption in Sochi hasn't cost us a single asterisking cent. I mean, it's 'nice' that so many people are outraged on behalf of the poor oppressed Russian people and really want them to benefit from good clean western corruption rather than that dirty eastern sort, it's just sad that it's distracting from the actual sport dogpile of anything even slightly wrong with journalist's accommodation and complaints about Russia's policy on gays being massively less oppressive than that of Saudi Arabia.

Not joking about the down south, shrapnel is used here as well and we're about as south as you get. No doubt another thing we've borrowed from the motherland.