Zoraptor

But again the Atheist has the better position. It is logcial after all to demand proof of an on the face of it pretty outrageous claim. More logical certainly than to propose erecting an invisible wall between the imperical and the metaphysical and demanding that they not be allowed to affect one another. It's not a perfectly balanced dichotomy. One side is cheating by proposing that it need only supply anecdotal evidence of its existence. I don't like the "proof/ logic" argument. It's impossible to (for example) prove logically that other people have independant existence- the only thing provable is that I apparently have independant thought, there's no proof that anyone else exists independant of me and it's impossible to furnish actual proof of it. Sure, other people give a good facsimile of having independant thought but I'm sure it's just a very advanced simulation as that fits all the evidence as well as it being "reality" does.

I appear to have bought... two (!) 2011 games. There's also been a depressing amount of "install game, start playing game, have no time for game, forget about game" mixed in. I'm likely to pre-order three titles over Feb-March which would mean buying more 2012 titles in the first quarter than for the entire crop of 2011.

Grimoire. Age of Decadence. Needed to exclude indies as well as MMOs.

Other young Julio-Claudian emperors include Caligula and Nero, mind you. The main factor in Augustus doing so well was that he was personally very competent and the people he surrounded himself with were also very competent (plus he wasn't a total nutcase, unlike little boot and the World's Greatest Artist). Whether the young Mr Kim is so lucky is an open question at this point.

BUT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO DOWNLOADING MY POSTS FROM THE CODEX!!! HOW CAN THEY DO THIS??? I'M GOING TO IMMEDIATELY DOWNLOAD MY POSTS FROM RPGWATCH IN CASE THEY'RE NEXT!!!

It's hot and sunny here. Somehow I've ended up with a 4kg ham and a 4kg turkey- for two people, since nearly all my relatives are in the UK at the moment. Had too much to eat already, and approaching too much to drink too. Merry Christmas all.

Is there another ME3 apart from the one that's coming out in early March? Given the weird accounting years companies have that could be fiscal Q4 2012, perhaps.

It's whatever the story calls for it to be. If it needs to be a frigate, it's a frigate, if it needs to be a pocket cruiser it's that. If it needed to be the offspring of two overly amorous reapers who got a bit drunk on intergalactic ale after a spot of planet busting and ended up Regretting It In The Morning then it'll be that. It's like the time(s) you get trapped by foozle in a ludicrously contrived situation you've seen coming a mile off in [almost anygame], it's what the plot calls for that's the determining factor, not any theoretical 'logic'. To be fair though, being able to look out the window when all else fails is a pretty sensible idea, even if having a single pilot sitting in an exposed position is on the face of it absolutely ludicrous.

Dunno. Probably the best answer is it's the same place that humans became humans, rather than just 'sophisticated' monkeys? Whether that's H. sapiens (sapiens), H. habilis or whatever classification they currently like for H. sapiens neanderthalensis is an open question. Not a great question though, really. Religious people will/ can just say God Did It, atheists will either deny that a soul exists or regard it as different from how the religious people do. Even the religious people won't regard it uniformly as the Eastern 'religions' (Dharmics/ Hindu) regard it differently to western ones.

I'm slightly more religious than a slab of concrete- I've been to church services twice (?) in the past 15 years, both times when my sisters were married (one of them to an atheist)- and find Evangelical Atheists alternately hilarious and highly annoying, largely depending on how much their views are similar to mine. Usually it is more similar = more annoyance as I always end up asking "why do you care so much about what other people believe? Doesn't effect you so none of your business" in my head in those cases. Evangelical Atheists are however frequently very good indicators that the worst aspects of religious zeal actually have very little to do with religion*, and have far more to do with the capacity of humans to believe that people who have mere superficial differences are inherently inferior. I do rather like religion though, I like visiting temples/ churches/ mosques etc and like almost all religious art and music, and think that religion has been a huge influence on what makes us actually human as opposed to upright-walking-99%-chimp-reasoning-machines, and I'd describe myself as an agnostic rather than an atheist. *per South Parks's United Atheist Alliance etc

A 27 year old who's a general of said army... minus any actual military training. He went to the Kim Jong-Il military academy where he graduated as a **** general. Forever_Arone.jpg

It won't be on steam at all, unless valve changes their policy on Origin.

1) Police don't (except in exception circumstances) deal with civil infringements like copyright, the rights holders do 2) Piracy = copyright infringement by means of unauthorised duplication. If you're offering the files for download yourself then you have authorised it. 3) The letters are legal, at least in Germany which is where they are being issued. They're quite a big industry there.

It was on an espionage mission, I don't think there's any real doubt, and there is- given it's state- little doubt that it landed rather than crashed. It should not matter whether the border is well demarcated or not as it could carry out an observation of a nominal border line from well inside, and an inadvertent crossing would require a far larger deviation than credible. While physically shooting it down could (theoretically) be achieved very quickly and 'off the cuff' any sort of complicated electronic lassooing should take a more considerable amount of setting up and implementation. More importantly it would be far easier to achieve around certain highly valuable fixed points that you know will be of interest rather than along the border which is... ~800km long, not counting the Pakistani parts, nor the sea parts (something like 2000km), nor the border with Iraq, nor the border with Turkey; any of which the US could use as well. You simply cannot prevent intrusion along the border, it's too long, so you protect your high value targets, ping zap and you've got another card to trade with your friends in the Rus and Qin. Plus the US regularly has used overflight missions- see Gary Powers, the Blackbird etc- so it's hardly a great leap. In this case it's a wholly unarmed spy drone, so no weddings trashed. Though the "please can we have it back"s are amusing.

Yeah, I remembered that too. I thought they could do no wrong? I don't think you'll find many people thinking that the GOG shutdown stunt was in the best taste either. The mafiaa shakedown letters also happened with the first Witcher so it really isn't surprising.

Polish translation of the judgement. I don't speak Polish so cannot absolutely vouch for it.

Hmm. That would involve them offering the file for free themselves, as an agent of CDPR. Can't see them getting any good result if that were the case (it's either entrapment or they've voided their own copyright protection against duplication by allowing said duplication in the first place). I'm always deeply sceptical of 100% accuracy statements as that will often mean something like "we included a clause in which liability is admitted in all settlements and as such our accuracy is 100%! FACT!!! r00fles!". It's also telling that they are doing it in Germany rather than somewhere like the UK where lawyers have been disbarred (IIRC) and firms have gone out of business for issuing such letters, or the US where the extremely apropos "Shakedown" description comes from. They did lose the distribution stuff (if you want a cheap digital version of TW2 and live in Australasia buy it now, as GOG is being forced to reinstitute GeoIP) but they won the DRM part of the case outright. They're hardly out of money though, N-B was ordered to pay CDPR the arrears they'd been collecting from the retail version as well.

One or two people mention it here, and it isn't particularly well rated. Somewhat amused that even the people who gave it a good rating made it sound pretty bad.

I think a Euro superstate could work in theory, but would have required a quantum leap from having the Mark/ Franc/ Guilder/ Drachma straight to having a genuine fiscal union with proper, and enforceable, rules and supervision rather than the half way hodge podge that actually came. As below, nobody really wanted strong enforcement at the time as they all wanted the ability to break the rules. Now, they're in a far more weak position fundamentally and trying to bolt the door after the horse has bolted. France and Germany sought "stability" and economic growth (financial imperialism) through disciplined economics. The first part is certainly true, but France and Germany hardly used disciplined economics- they happily broke the established Euro rules themselves when it suited them.

I doubt they would fail outright anyway, their market capitalisation is very low so they'd make a nice target for a competitor to buy- it would be less than 10%* what EA paid for Bioware/ Pandemic for example, and given that they could then rationalise the distribution side of things plenty of savings could be made. *They'd have to take over the debt/ liabilities as well, presumably, which would up that.

Mainly because they don't (and never have) wanted a federalised European Superstate, they want the glorified free trade zone they signed up to. Given the direction of Europe no one with any sense would want a European Superstate. The Euro has problems! Damn the Torpedoes! Full Steam Ahead! The Square Peg can fit in the Round Hole if you just Hit It Hard Enough! You cannot stop your ships from sinking by tethering the half that are sinking to the half that aren't, you'll just end up sinking everyone. I don't like Cameron at all, but he was absolutely right that it would not be in the UK's best interests to sign up, even if some of the provisions are eminently sensible.

Just should just download it instead, you've payed money for it. Don't join the dark side! :< Nah. If you wanted to buy it do so via second hand/ rent or borrow, for console. Steam gets nothing, publisher gets nothing; get a cheaper game, the sweet knowledge that some accountant/ exec is foaming at the mouth at not getting a cut, don't miss out on anything and have the lovely warm feeling of it being 100% legal. Since publishers have zero qualms placing limits because "it's legal" you should have zero qualms using the same argument in reverse.

Not necessarily. If you simply do not have enough time no planning, no matter how excellent, will do anything but mitigate problems because the ultimate problem is trying to do too much. Personally I think they did have enough time, though it would be a tight squeeze. The main problem was trying to make a game with some fundamental changes without allowing enough time to check that they actually worked properly and to fix what needed fixing. Ultimately it's likely to be a combination of both unrealistic top down management dictates (narrow release window/ fast turn around) and poor project management.

There's non-steam versions of Torchlight (and will be for the sequel). Minor correction: 1404 used Tages (? maybe SecuRom), not Uplay. The new game (2070) does use Uplay, but at least in a far more moderate form than the always on monstrosity it started as.