Zoraptor
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Everything posted by Zoraptor
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Bought/ donated by supporters (Turkey, Qatar, Saudi) for the most part, with a dollop of quid pro quo expected in the event of them winning. That is why there's been some fighting over the (very limited size) oil fields amongst the rebels as they allow more flexible purchases on the open market via bootlegged oil. The situation is actually pretty similar for the government at this point, I'd fully expect them to be buying entirely on credit with the understanding that Chinese and Russian firms get reconstruction contracts, and getting donations from Iran/ Hezbollah. I very much doubt Assad is getting much at all in the way of taxes or custom duties at this point...
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If Obama did not know it was almost certainly because he was advised it would be sensible not to know so he could plead ignorance in at least a semi honest fashion. That happens all the time with such things. It does get somewhat amusing to see the same people claim to have strong oversight and ownership over intelligence matters when it's a positive thing (eg Obama and ObL) but suddenly and oh so surprisingly not have the same sort of oversight when it's a negative thing; but politicians gonna do what politicians do, else they wouldn't be politicians. It's certainly not limited to the US, our PM defended allowing our CIA equivalent to spy on us by saying he would oversee everything strongly and follow a strong moral code to protect privacy (which, of course, could not be enshrined in the law itself because... well, just trust him, he's got a nice smile after all!) and that was after it was found he'd allowed many (80+) previous illegal spying activities- which somehow despite his 'strong oversight' he still "didn't know about". Wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if Key/ Cameron/ Plastic Hair/ GillRuddAbbot as well as Obama knew it was going on, even if they too deliberately avoided the details.
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1) Wow, great allies you make. Selling RPGs to Assad and then turning around and selling them to the Rebels so they can fight Assad. Priceless. Russians even backstab their friends. Yes, and we'll now get a comment from Fox News Special Correspondent and totally not convicted criminal Ollie North on how the US would never, never in a million years do such a thing themselves. The russians are fairly honest about arming both sides because they know if they don't arm the rebels as well (albeit through intermediaries), someone else will.
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I wouldn't say hypocritical, because both the tendency to excuse stuff from your 'side' and to demonise or make unpleasant/ racist/ homophobic chants or even just generalise from example at the other side are the same base phenomenon with differing outward effects. The real problem lies with our inherent and fundamental tendency towards tribalism, rather like religion football tends to give a framework and purpose to people who are... idiots really, but if they weren't being idiotic in that way they'd almost certainly find another way. At its heart the football phenomenon says "wear our colours, sing our songs, chant our chants, support our team; and those [opponent] fans suck totally, as does their team" and many people take it extremely seriously. That's not a recipe for reason and moderation anywhere.
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UK Muslims targeted for speaking out about terror
Zoraptor replied to Walsingham's topic in Way Off-Topic
'Texanistan', not Texasistan. This is a very important differentiation! They could even keep the state flag as well, just add a crescent moon to it... -
They abuse their own as well. Big stink a year or so back when a (St Petersburg?) team got its first black player and he got flak from the home fans, though there was some talk that it was due to them using exclusively Russians up to then so not explicitly because he was black but because he was foreign. But it's the sort of thing relatively little attention is paid to when it doesn't have a useful second role as a stick to beat with, Lazio had to play several games behind closed doors last year due to similar issues for example yet you don't hear that being used to show that all Italians are racist, and you don't generally hear people complain about the far harsher anti gay laws in places like Saudi- or Qatar, given that they've got a world cup coming as well. That might be because they'll just tell the west to FOAD, but it isn't like Russia won't either, to all practical purposes. It's not that they aren't bad at all though, it's just that when something happens in Russia it tends to become symptomatic of the whole country to some people, when it happens elsewhere it's just an aberration that is being worked at hard to correct, even if (as in Lazio's case) it's actually happened multiple times.
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UK Muslims targeted for speaking out about terror
Zoraptor replied to Walsingham's topic in Way Off-Topic
UKBall has clearly been eating, uh, Pakistanballs, and plans on eating others perhaps a crypto afghaniball at the back for dessert. There's a fork in the picture (badly drawn, but it is mspaint) and the pool of suspicious liquid is green, like pakistanball, so that part's a lock. I'm not entirely sure what it is meant to mean though, perhaps that soylent green is pakistanis, I have heard that 'indian food' (a euphemism, no doubt, and using Raj India rather than modern) is very popular in the UK and is in fact their most popular dish. Some might say it is a commentary on how far the UK has fallen, clearly this is not so as UKball is wearing a Burberry cap- which is a premium brand just like the top hat in previous times. -
UK Muslims targeted for speaking out about terror
Zoraptor replied to Walsingham's topic in Way Off-Topic
You know, if I could just convince myself that that was a satirical dig at the sort of stuff obyknven posts... -
I rather suspect that analogy is not far off what actually happens. Probably with more powerpoint presentation involved than the average kid's presentation, but essentially accurate. Be a shame if things get bad in Mozambique again, they and Angola had largely got over their cold war era problems.
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Peaasterisks are actually the most rigorously heterosexual animals I've ever seen, or at least the only one I've directly interacted with. At one stage we had chickens and ducks, and a peahen of the male persuasion moved in to take advantage of their food and, well, ended up trying to take advantage of the chickens and ducks several times a day. I think it even tried it on with the dog. I suspect it was not only extraordinarily heterosexual, but also extraordinarily frustrated, at least until one of the neighbours got some actual peahens.
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Next time you can tell them that there's actually many examples of gayness in the animal kingdom.
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You guys do realise that article is ~18 months old, and got extensively discussed at that time? (Discuss away if you want, I'm not the Commissioner for Currency of Events, but it is rather old news)
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You'd have to go some way to be killed by Shank or Carbo as a Fighter though, as a Mage you're one bad throw away from the ignominity and embarrassment of it. Low level BG either sucks, or is some grade A 24 carat trolling. Unfortunate that achievements weren't popular back then, "Killed by Shank" would be a badge of dishonour to be cherished by all.
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Allegorical representation of drug addiction. Not an original viewpoint though.
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If Oby is a troll he'll say precisely what he thinks will generate the most butthurt in his target audience. Which means we'll now have an inundation of pseudo racist stuff, as that appears to be a winner. Frankly, he's been pretty successful at it, since people are still responding. I, of course, view his posts as an ironic critique of the self importance and lack of self reflection intrinsic in the psychological make up of the west. Then again, I view pong as an allegory for the struggle of order and against entropy and that struggle's ultimate futility...
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It's all good. I wouldn't see being described as an elitist as being anything but a compliment anyway, since it's basically saying that I like quality, which I do. I won't like something just because it's highbrow and dislike something just because it's popular, ultimately I'll like something because I like it- but having quality is certainly one of the major factors in whether I'll like it. But popularity is by no means a measure of quality, it's only a measure of popularity- Breaking Bad's last episode isn't fantastic and its first terrible just because 10 million instead of 1.6 million watched it, and Jersey Shore wasn't better than the first ep either just because more people watched that.
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Yeah, have to agree. The original point wrt to Thiaf was that it was not a 'good' reboot not because it was likely to fail financially, but because it doesn't use the heritage inherent in the name to full effect, and in fact (well, it's my opinion so is FACT! and anyone disagreeing is wrong) the name and its baggage is a net negative given the approach taken. Shifting the goalposts to financial success is an entirely separate criterion from that. Fallout 3 did well financially, but it had bugs that were present in Oblivion and are still present in Skyrim, the dialogue varies from just about competent to cringingly abysmal and the plotting featured the most utterly stupid and nonsensical finish of all time! Of all time! Calling it a failure in those respects may be subjective- though the ending is about as close to objectively bad as it's possible to get- but it's certainly fair. And if you wanted isometric/ TB then it will be a failure automatically. (I also don't really see how something with "I don't see" in the first sentence can be taken as any sort of statement of objective fact, it's clearly an opinion)
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I have to agree in general with kgambit, though I'd go a little further. Not only is the recovery rather tepid, but it is largely predicated on the cheap availability of money which is being generated unsustainably and almost exclusively for the benefit of a small section of the economy. It's very easy to make profits and get a large scale share market recovery if the government is printing money/ using QE and you're getting, in effect, zero interest loans. While the US is buffered against some of the problems inherent in that due to being the reserve currency everyone ends up paying in terms of price inflation (and thus in a static job market, wage deflation). And it isn't even clear that it's at all sustainable in the medium term as the market throws a wobbly any time someone even hints at removing the teat, hardly a sign that the 'confidence' is real rather than illusory. That the people and sector getting the help are also the people and sectors primarily responsible for putting us in this mess in the first place is just another dollop of irony on the cake. Overall it's like someone who has had a badly broken leg and is now on painkillers. At some point the painkillers have to be withdrawn, at which point we'll find out if the leg is actually mended and can be used properly or cannot bear weight without pain, and if the patient has got addicted to the meds.
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I wouldn't count Fallout 3, personally. Nor DXHR, though marginally. F3 is in continuity and while the end result is rather like restored_jesus.jpg rather than the Mona Lisa I don't think it was from lack of effort. They clearly did try to cater to the franchise's history, even if it was mainly peripheral things like getting hellboy to narrate an intro and have Harold appear in an utterly pointless encounter. Much as with XP in Thief, I don't really care about things like the perspective change though, which a lot of people do. The classic 'bad' reboot to me would be the recentish Syndicate, where the name was nothing but baggage. The really stupid thing is that Thief could quite easily have avoided a lot of the fan negativity. The story is clearly based on- or at least compatible with- being post Thief 3 and there'd be very little negative in paying lip service to the established setting, and that little bit of respect would have got many of the fans on board. As it was though they basically told the fans that the games they loved were rubbish and needed changing, never a good place to start from.
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Russia, the US and England in the same group, surely?
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XP was symptomatic of the problem thiaf- and most modern 'reimaginings', to be fair- have. They want to use the brand name to make a game that isn't like the previous games in the series but is like Assassin's Creed or some other successful game. But they'll use the brand name even though it isn't well known and having a 'Garrett' who acts/ sounds little like the original doesn't bring much recognition because the Thief games were not huge sellers and the last one was ~ a decade ago so the only people who recognise him are likely to view revoicing and restyling negatively. Same with the apparent emphasis on the 'cinematic experience' and set pieces, only contextual actions, swooping etc, they'd be close to the last thing people still playing thief after all this time want, and the more casual fans are likely to have forgotten anyway. I'm not exactly sure that removing XP at this stage is a good thing though, it must be pretty close to feature lock given it has around three months (supposedly hard dated) before release. I actually don't have any inherent problems with xp in Thief on principle, though it certainly ought to be goal based (Bloodlines style) rather than standard RPG style. But it, and a lot of the other changes, makes sense only with a new character/ lead, not with a Garrett who may or may not be detached in the timeline but is certainly a master thief already.
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That's generally due to the art of compromise. For example, say that a husband and wife win $100k on the lottery. One wants to put half towards the mortgage and buy a new car with the rest. The other wants to put half towards the mortgage and buy a new boat. Compromise position might be buying a smaller boat and car, and paying less off the mortgage- so leaving more debt than either separate plan would have.
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Unfortunately there's far too many ingrate immigrant prostitutes taking our, uh, jobs so there isn't much call for a grandfatherly gigolo with a cool aristocratic accent and impeccable tailoring any more.
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Yes, it's untrue and unfair and a horrendous slur on our fine bobbies. After all, if they didn't carry guns on occasion how could the protect the British Bulldog Old Blighty Spirit of Dunkirk people of this blessed plot from the scourge and depredations of reprobates such as that Brazilian electrician who deliberately and callously impersonated a known person of interest and then shot himself repeatedly in the back of the head all just to embarrass us. And you know what, he was an illegal immigrant, just showing just how perfidious a threat they are! (Sorry, the Daily Mail wanted an example of my writing for their job interview, and I wanted something for the Sun too. I think I may have overdone it with the rampant nationalistic hyperbole though, after all there's no way the two best selling papers in Britain would publish a load of pseudo- well, maybe not pseudo for the Daily Heil- fascist rhetoric, there's no demand for such things in the UK and the fantastic press system ensures if it ever happened it'd never reoccur).
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Yeah, pretty much entirely set up.
