Raithe

For the general quirky literature interest : http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/hey_amazon_wheres_my_money/ On just how much money a popular book can earn it's author..

The Political Cows SOCIALISM You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour COMMUNISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk FASCISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk NAZISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you BUREAUCRATISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull. SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. AN AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead. A GREEK CORPORATION You have two cows. You borrow lots of euros to build barns, milking sheds, hay stores, feed sheds, dairies, cold stores, abattoir, cheese unit and packing sheds. You still only have two cows. A FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows. A JAPANESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide. AN ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch. A SWISS CORPORATION You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them. A CHINESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation. AN INDIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You worship them. A BRITISH CORPORATION You have two cows. Both are mad. AN IRAQI CORPORATION Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the ** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy. AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate. A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive...

heh, and EA apparently are going even one better.. Inquisitor - EA censors own support number in forums n4g News - EA Censors it's own support number Destructoid - EA Censors its own support number

"What do you mean he's dead grandpa?!" "Well, he is played by Sean Bean, what were you expecting?"

Having a bit of a play around with my Consular this weekend, and I'm being reminded just how annoying that light puzzle on Balmorra is. Now, I like the fact that the area quest isn't a combat thing, but an actual puzzle to solve. The pain is it's one that involves hitting a whole bunch of switches to get the right combination of lights on, and it's open to every manjack idiot who rushes up while you're in the middle of solving it and they start throwing random switches because they don't have a clue...

Well, that one I'd have to hit with the historical trivia that it's only been the last century that pink was an intrinsically feminine colour. Back during the Victorian era, pink was generally used more for boys then girls. You were more likely to find a boy with pink handkerchiefs, cravats, etc, then a girl using the colour, and girls were more likely to have blue shades on their fashion then men. You just can't argue that the colours are intrinsically male or female. They keep changing over time..... But enough of the random trivia for the day...

Although it's always nice to see that the US has such a clear and valid position on it all after their joys of democracy and right of self-determination.. Telegraph Blog: The State Departments Falklands press-briefing was a diplomatic disaster for the US/

My key issue with the "Historic and legal rights: Based on the a) Legacy from Spain", is that the Spanish came after both the initial French and English colonies. In fact, Spain conquered the French colony and claimed it, then later stole the English colony, but to prevent war from erupting made a peace treaty that legally gave the colony back to England. The British presence pulled back in the late 1700's because of troubles with the US. Just after the American Independance, an Argentine Entrepreneur supposedly set up some effort to monitor and handle uncontrolled seal hunting or some such and ended up seizing some American ships. Which prompted the Captain of the USS Lexington to come in and pretty much shoot up the port. There's also a few running arguments from various historians over whether there was anyone on the islands in an official capacity when the British came back. To go with some comments from Klaus Dodds (a History Professor, who yes, teaches Geopolitics at the University of London) during an interview over the Argentine President's letter she sent a couple of months ago:

Well it's still a running argument over whether it was the French, the Spanish, or the English that discovered the islands first. Although there's a good push for a Dutch explorer as well. Both the French and English built settlements on the islands in the late 1700's. The Spanish managed to swipe the French settlement at one point, then later attacked the English and expelled them from the islands. But in the name of preventing war, they were given back to the English. Then with the whole American Independence thing going on and other concerns, the English withdrew their people, but left a plaque stating they still considered the settlement theirs. Spain did likewise with their (previously French) settlement a few years later In the early 1800's a guy basically established himself on the islands , but he actually managed to get backing both from the Republic of Buenos Aires and Great Britain.. Then the US got involved (just to add to the general mess). The Argentines sent someone to run the place, but he was killed in a mutiny after a short time there. Then an Irishman arrived to increase the whole British Flag there, and they actually worked in conjunction with some of the Argentines who were settled in the area. With one of those historical twists, someone murderd a bunch of high ranking Argentines, and a lot of them left, leaving the British there. From then on, it pretty was left as it was as a British Naval Station, until the mid 1800's when it was turned into a "proper" colony settlement. Stroll on to the creation of the UN, and the Argentines decided they wanted the islands and pressed their claim, but the fact that all the islanders wanted to remain British saw that claim fall through. Jump to 1980's and the ruling junta decided to distract the populace by having an "quick, easy war". Nuff said. Then big deposits of oil were discovered a decade or so on.. and it's suddenly become another big thing.

Heh, did you see the bit about the father who hacked his daughters version of Donkey Kong, so it's now Pauline who rescues Mario?

So yes, a couple of days ago the Falkland Islands held a referendum over whether they should remain a British territory. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21750909 In which, only three people voted "no". Of course, the Argentine's are basically saying that the vote doesn't matter, and regardless of how the islanders feel, the islands should still be given to Argentina. What might add some interest to the matters is the new Pope, who , while a Cardinal, made quite a few public comments about "British usurpers/invaders" on the islands and was apparently quite vigerous about how the Argentine soldiers who died during the Falkland War need to be remembered, honoured, and (depending on how you take his tone of delivery) possibly given vengeance. While I'm all for honouring fallen soldiers who did their duty, I tend to think you give up the ability to claim vengeance when you actually are the ones who invaded in the first place.... Still, as a lawyer friend of mine noted: "It is essential to Argentina's argument that it rejects (a) the right to self-determination, (b) domiciled jurisdiction and © any statute of limitations. If these three principles are accepted Argentina has no claim. If they are rejected Argentina has no right to exist!"

Between assorted wakeups in the night and something setting the dogs barking early in the morning.. I think I got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. I'm not sure if I'm actually awake now.

It's amazing how what should be simple home repair jobs turn into hours of back and forth. Fixing a broken diaphragm on a toilet flush and it ends up rolling into a whole bunch of things, finding eroding rubber seals, back and forth to get parts, find the right tools, ..

Well I know Kai Leng had all sorts of history as Cerberus Bad Boy Assassin in the books, and I think one of those comic runs. But if you didn't have any of that backstory.. I mean be serious, he looks like a campy Nightwing, he gets stopped from assassinating one target by a terminally ill former assassin with breathing troubles, then runs away from his other targets because Shepard got there first, he gets his ass kicked on Thessia until a gunship uses missiles to blow the floor from under your feet, and THEN he crows about how skilled he is?

I have to admit, one thing I'd love to try out even now would be a proper Al-Quadim game with a group that really tried getting into that attitude of the Arabian Nights. The only time I actually played it, everyone else was basically just acting in that standard tolkienesque western fantasy with a twist, rather then going for that flow of genies and culture. Which was a damn shame.

I have to admit, after replaying Priority Thessia... The general idea behind it is great. The hidden Prothean Beacon being the secret of Asari supremacy, groovy. But the execution annoys me. You get the annoyance factor of Kai Leng. A guy you basically kick the crap out of easily, who only gets by you because a gunship blows the floor from under your feet. And he then gloats about how he was so skilled and capable. It's like.. are you hallucinating or just suffering head trauma from how much I was kicking your ass? And how the hell does an omni-glove interface with a beacon and upload all it's data and VI, whilst stripping the beacon bare in a matter of seconds? Combine that with the fact that you can't yell at the Asari for not listening to you four years earlier, or helping out before hand while they had a working beacon on their home planet. All you have is Shepard being all "I'm sorry". Damn right I'm sorry. I'm sorry you lied to the galaxy, I'm sorry you refused to help, I'm sorry you waited until half your people were dead before admitting that you had something useful on your planet. Dang it. After the highs of Tuchanka, how did they hit the low that was Thessia?

Oh, it's always fun to get a phone call from someone with an incredibly thick indian accent and they start off with a "Hello, this is Windows and we're contacting you about a problem you're having with your computer. We understand it's running slow and having other issues while connecting to the internet and I'm going to talk you through how to deal with this..." So you kind of do the "uh huh" noise and listen to them talk you through various tasks you're meant to be doing to your pc under their 'guidance', and then you say to them : "So, basically, you're getting me to remove all security aspects from my computer while allowing remote access to someone who doesn't even know the correct company name behind this operating system?" And then they hang up suddenly in shock. C'est la vie. I don't know what it is, but we can go for a month without getting them, and then suddenly have a dozen in a week. I think what's amusing most is that whoever is organising these phone scams in India doesn't bother to get people who actually know computers, but just gives them the script to work with. Sometimes I like to play with the whole "That's interesting, my computer is running on linux so.." or the "ah, right. which computer do you mean then, because my parents both have computers and there's mine, and the laptop and the.." Or just seeing how much they bluster before they hang up if you say something like "oh, that's interesting, i happen to work in computer security and.."

.. Just got back in after spending the afternoon helping a friend set up a shed for his motorbike in his new place. Trying to put a coat of waterproofing, then erecting said shed in cold weather (although not the low extremes mentioned in Sweden earlier in this thread), but annoyingly cold and with occasional short bouts of snow fall.. is not the most fun. Especially when your feet feel like blocks of ice and you start losing sensation in your hands as you try to deal with screws and wotnot.... Now clutching a hot mug of tea and trying to soak in some warmth...

As a sidenote, I've been running a pc with Windows Vista Ultimate for.. 5/6 years now? And I have to say, I haven't had any grief out of it. Compared to '95 , '98, or ME... It's been smooth sailing. My father went to WIndows 7 and has has lots of issues (although it's mostly settled now), and my sister's new laptop has Windows 8 and that is just..ick to deal with.

Ah, but if you want the different combinations of ME1 & ME2 as well... ME3 has lots of good moments, but it's got some annoying moments to it, It's like 90% of funable stuff and then it hits that point... The overheard conversations make a nice touch, but "overheard fetch quests" as pretty much the sole sidequest elements was a bit sucky. War Readiness as an idea was interesting, but making it completely dependant on multiplayer was pretty much an automatic turnoff. It's just a shame that for the finale you could go from the heights of goodness that was Tuchanka.. to the lows that were, well, multicoloured endings. Either way, Citadel is certainly a good addition and worth running through.

Had some really weird dreams about getting into some really deep conversations with people I didn't know, woke incredibly early to a stinking headache, so kind of lolled around in bed for a few hours, which actually has had it mostly pass. Of course, now my help has been requested, so I'm going to be spending a few hours this afternoon helping build and coat a shed at the place my friend and his bride will be moving into when they get back from the wedding. At least there's no snow, and the wind has died down mostly today.

As the night winds down and prepare to pack things up for the evening.. A little Two Steps From Hell to amble the mood along.. http://youtu.be/TCDrNR3Cr_M

Gengis Khan, not just a Conquerer: Throughout his reign, and moreover his conquests of Asia, he was sleeping with, raping or romancing just about every woman he could find. He found a lot. When you've been scientifically credited as the ancestor to .5 per cent of the human population today, that is the symbol of a true sex god. In other words, his "conquests" were so numerous, he was really was the father to a plurality of Asia.

If you just want to test out different combinations of companions, attitudes, renegage/paragon etc for the party, I'd say get hold of Gibbed's Mass Effect editor rather then play through eeeeverything all over again. Then just load up saves from before you start Citadel.

The thought of dealing with Windows 8 should never put you in a good mood. It says so many, many things about the state of your mental health....