Raithe

http://youtu.be/Uan1b8l3Zjc

Best of luck with it GD. Houdini always said that the bonds of marriage were the only ones he could never escape from. And the only ones he never wanted to escape from.

I have to agree with my colleague Wals on this, Istanbul can be an amazing place to visit. The atmosphere is good, it's got some great buildings, the grand bazarre is pretty damn brilliant and they're generally fun to haggle with (without having to get nasty), and if you get the option to visit the Topkapi palace, see the treasure rooms and tour the harem...

From what's been said, it's not so much as saying remove the filtering, as just switch it to a position where it doesn't stop access. The interesting thing will be whether it records any traffic whether it's on or off, how many additional "non-porn" elements just "happen" to be filtered as well in the name of protecting minors because apparently you can't trust parents, and how much security the government is actually going to have over Huawei's involvement. Also, has no-one explained to the government how some basic tech-smart under 18's can easily access a proxie server to get around this?

Parts of the issues cropping up is that although the big public tell all is mainly based around the "pornography" aspect, its turning out that there are going to be a few other things caught in the filters. The worry is just how many "extra" things are going to be included, and just how easy it will be for any government in the future to add more to said filters... Also, the planned software to be used for the filters is that produced by a compnay that happens to be owned by a chinese corporation, that has its CEO as a former Chinese Intelligence Officer... Edit: I think Wals point is more about the thing that if you walked into a newsagents to get a porn magazine, by law it has to be on the top shelve (thus out of reach of the kids), and if it has anything beyond a women in a skimpy outfit on the cover it'll have something covering that, and it's illegal for said magazine to be sold to anyone under 18. Compared to the internet, where you can wander around and just click "yes I am 18" regardless of whether you are or not.

Actually, nudity in public is not directly illegal in the UK. If someone complains about you being nude or such, then it becomes a public nuisance issue and that's when you can get arrested. That's slightly seperate from the illegal Lewd acts issue. Heh, one of the funny aspects was some girl in Brighton was out for a night with friends, flashed a security camera and went on with her life. Two weeks later she was arrested because the guy on the other end of the security camera complained about it.

I have to admit, I always found Magician, and then the Empire Trilogy as the most interesting of the bunch... Although certain elements of the Serpentwar Saga are quite good. I still have to get around to the Demonwar and Chaoswar sagas though.

Dropped in the barbers this afternoon for that general clean up of hair before it gets too wild and eintsein-like. Been having a brief discussion with a friend in the US about Cadbury chocolate and explaining what a Cadbury Flake was. Heh, which meant when I was running around on groceries after the barber I saw a box and had to snag it since it's been awhile since I enjoyed some flakey smooth chocolate...

I like the game, it's enjoyable. I just wish it could deal with Shadowruns other then the "kill everybody on the run, it's a loud, crash, smoking obvious run". Half the fun of the pen and paper is the paranoia when you get hired, the recon on the target, the recon on the Johnson who hires you, trying to figure out who is going to get screwed by who, planning out the run and the contingencies.. The different types of run. Whether it's an extraction, an infiltration, a datasteal, a property theft, outright wetwork, a major smash and destroy, a character assassination series.. Policing your brass (or going caseless), not using lethal weapons unless that's part of the run (or it's all gone to hell), bypassing securitty in ways other then "blowing drek up", and making it out without it making the news (unless that's part fo the point of the run). I guess it'll be interesting to see if the editor actually lets people develop those other sorts of run beyond a story that dumps you in to pretty much kill everything and move through the maze.

Hey, don't blame us for your society. If we hadn't been so worried about the French more then you guys, you'd still have a good old constitutional monarchy and not have to worry about this annoying Republic/Democrat hack back and forth, and watch the Tea Party crazies go ultra-extremist...

Wouldn't this be a thing for the ICC to be looking at for them to be taken to trial rather then a human rights issue on whether it would be right to send them back to the country of origin?

The one thing that interests me is whether the filters will record information regardless of whether they're technically switched "on" or "off"...

I have to admit the Universal Brotherhood was kind of nice for the multiple ways you could achieve your ends. The bad bit was that if you crossed over elements of it, it didn't recognise it. So you could be in disguise, but they'd still ask you why you weren't in uniform even if you were, or talk to you about joining the Brotherhood..

Hm. I seem to bounce from extremes. I've had the gf who told me I was a cold-hearted sociopathic bastard, I've had various "you're charmingly quirky, or quirkily charming", I've got a couple of ex's that are still good friends, and I've run into one ex who is now married and actually told me she still thinks about me. Heh, and I've still got the emotional wounds from the Grand Ex, who was the love of my life. C'est la vie. C'est la amor. If it's not passionate, it aint love. If it aint love, it's not going to end up hurting. The question you have to always ask yourself, is whether the good times and the memories you might forge are going to be worth the hurt that could potentially follow.

For the random interest to this.. http://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/heres-how-to-avoid-the-incoming-cameron-porn-filters/

Hah. Not always true, but certainly the fierce ones only get fiercer. Heh, I used to know a girl at University who would totally vamp it up and act as the aggressive sex kitten type. She said it actually cut down on the guys that hit on her and worked as a defense. She always claimed that the average guy in a club or pub get intimidated by a girl like that, don't know how to handle it, and end up backing down and leaving them alone.

That doesn't surprise me, as they'll likely do that for the DLCs. Heh, you can also change the campaign itself to "import" as well as create a new character. So if you want to be truly silly, you can finish it, then re-use the character that finished it to start fresh from the beginning.

Also noting that you can set up adventures where you "import" a character from previous games rather then having to freshly create a new one.

For the monday start off..

Not directly on the box, and I know there's the sharp split of love/hate for this show on the forum, but since I found this the other day I thought I'd throw it up here for anyone who wants to spend an hour or so viewing. (note, the sound is a bit on the low side)

So far today I've been skimming through various Shadowrun 4th Edition books - Artifacts Unbound, Jet Set, The Clutch of Dragons, The Land of Promise...

What you've never realised is we are all the form of your own Purgatory....

Spent a chunk of the afternoon reading Shadowrun books. The rpg sourcebooks and suchlike, not the novels. I was given a bunch at christmas that I never really sat down to read because I haven't been in the right mood for cyberpunk since then. Since I've been dabbling at Shadowrun Returns the past couple of days, I thought I would... We actually had rain break last night which was great. Of course, we're still in the high 20's but the humidity has dropped some.