BruceVC

I had a good flight to Heathrow last night, I flew Virgin Airlines. Not a bad airline but I still think Emirates and Etihad offer better service I sat next to a really cool American lady from Massachusetts , she has been in South Africa the last 3 months and has been working for various NGO's on the continent but her Visa expired so she has to return to the USA and try to renew it from there. She also likes talking so we chatted a lot during the flight But as usual I didn't sleep much on the flight, 3 hours or so, so its an early night for me tonight before the seminar starts tomorrow

KFC is for n00bs. EDIT: Brice f KFC upsets your stomach, then why the hell do you eat there once a month? I eat takeaway nasties maybe every six months when I have no other choice than going hungry, and even then I've been systematically working to ensure I have tinned food available. I like the skin on the chicken And also I like to support my friend when he eats KFC ..and he has no choice because he works there

Go for it. If you are so massively misinterpreting what I write as vitriol, or actually find it annoying, what I write is likely lost on you anyways. Something I've found to be true that applies to pretty much everyone at various times: The mood in which you are when you read what someone else writes can very much influence how you interpret their words. There is zero vitriol in anything I've ever written on this forum. What I write might be blunt and a little rough for some to swallow as a result, but there's zero animosity or anger behind it. I agree, we may be on opposite sides of most discussions but I don't find you vitriolic or belligerent, yes you are opinionated but who isn't ? Also you have caused me to rethink my position on one or two topics so even though I may not necessarily agree with you often I do enjoy reading your input and appreciate the way you always explain your point in detail where applicable

Same as me, wow this is unusual..all four of us are excited about Dying Light. We should form a club of some sort?

Yeah I can believe anything when it comes to what people believe around conspiracy theories

So whats the lesson, you should have stayed at the party until at least 3-4am. Then you would have been guaranteed to sleep when you got home

I accept it as an explanation, but not as a justification. In effect I find that point to be at best parallel to the line of relevance rather than on it. Politicians are perfectly capable of refusing to follow public opinion when it's against their wishes, after all, so they ignore the 'rules' all the time and only obey them when it suits their purposes. Thus it isn't really a 'rule' at all- especially since the politicians are standing on the sidelines fanning the fear themselves. So fundamentally we will never agree because you believe politicians are intentionally embellishing the risk from Islamic extremism to control public opinion? For me the risk is real and needs increased attention on certain levels...we are at an impasse

From what I understand, a different dev team is making DI2. Techland is making Dying Light because they didn't like the direction that the publisher wanted them to take with their second game. Interesting. Dying Light does seem to have more life in it: Wow that looks great fun, I like the way you run on the roofs and avoid the Zombies Edit : Also I see you don't necessarily appear to be a "goodie" like where they ask you to get a copy of that scientists research ?

Funny you say that today but I'm packing for my UK training trip, I fly tonight I arrive in London tomorrow morning and the course starts on Tuesday till Thursday. Then I'll have 3 days off in London...yay....I'm excited

I'm horrified you went to a KFC TN, truly horrified. There food has very little nutritional value, let that belly ache be a lesson for next time !!! For the record I eat KFC about 1 month but I also never feel comfortable afterwards. One of my good friends is a financial manager at the HQ in South Africa so I sometimes support him as they have to eat KFC once a week as part of their mandatory feedback program

I see Charlie Hebdo is now printing 7 million copies of their magazine. So clearly the objective of the terrorists to silence the publisher has succeeded...business is really suffering http://kdvr.com/2015/01/17/charlie-hebdo-now-printing-7-million-copies/ Hey maybe thats the conspiracy theory, maybe Charlie Hedbo attacked themselves to increase business and readership numbers

Fair enough, some of these countries do have oil But the USA is now the worlds biggest producer of oil and natural gas so this argument that the USA " only acts in the international arena when it suits its oil agenda " should become more and more irrelevant as time goes on if you look at the reality of global oil production http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-04/u-s-seen-as-biggest-oil-producer-after-overtaking-saudi.html There are much easier ways to control oil production in places like Liberia and Sierra Leone than to get involved in stopping Ebola. The USA could have stayed out of trying to stop the virus and when the spread eventually slowed down they could have just got the massive oil companies based in the USA to get involved in actually building oil refineries like we see in other African countries like Nigeria and Angola where Western oil companies are instrumental in oil production So once again the view that the USA sent troops to stop Ebola is about oil doesn't make logistical and business sense where there are other much easier ways to do this So Vals you need to accept this was a humanitarian mission and give the USA some credit

Nah. Not nah, as in it isn't the explanation for why, because it certainly is- at least if you have a charitable view of politicians- but nah as it's reasoning you can use to justify granting anything and everything, power wise, and as such I utterly reject it as a justification (as opposed to explanation) for anything. Mandatory DNA samples at birth, mandatory finger prints, 'thought chips' when they become feasible, a domestic informant network that would put the Stasi to shame, nerve stapling, purging the unbelievers, ethnic cleansing, eugenics- there is literally nothing you won't get if you accept "people are frightened of the boogie man and politicians bow to their stupidity" as an argument for stuff. From someone who knew intimately the process and how to manipulate it: Hasn't changed much since 1933, except for the labels, the enemies and the tools. And the PR spin. And the ease with which GCHQ/ NSA/ GCSB etc can listen at every keyhole; Goering, Beria, Himmler etc would wet themselves in ecstacy at the thought. So ultimately that does explain why in one sense, but the other reason why is because politicians are both hungry to accumulate as much power as people can be stampeded into (or kept ignorant of) granting or at best unprincipled and gutless enough to only defend free speech as a convenient PR check box. People are stupid, politicians take advantage of that. Statistically, I not only have far more chance of dying from lightning, drowning, flu, falling branches, suicide, earthquakes, car crashes, meningitis, anything; but if I had died of terrorism, here, then it would be 100% certain I'd been killed by... french spies. I agree that this really boils down to a perspective around " do you trust your politicians enough to believe that they won't they won't abuse the power that these types of initiatives give them" ...like Goering and Nazis did with their propaganda machinery in the last century. Personally I do, so thats not a concern for me The Internet is the greatest source of information and allows the spread of information more easily than ever before in the history of mankind. But that also comes with real risks and security challengers. We know that many extremist groups use the Internet, and its various components like Social Media, to recruit members and spread propaganda. So what do you do as a government? Do you just ignore it? Do you start just blocking certain websites and banning Social Media....we see this already in places like Iran and China But these solutions are not what Western countries fundamentally stand for, they generally don't believe in trying to control the Internet and what people have access to. So this just leaves increased monitoring of what people are saying and what information they access. And despite how people may think data is received using the Internet, countries and governments only have access to information within their own borders So for example if I send an email from NY to Houston this email doesn't leave the borders of the USA. And this applies to people sitting in the UK and referencing a website based in Syria, the Americans won't be aware of this under most circumstances. So this new Cyber initiative from the UK and USA will give those respective governments more visibility on the type of communication between these countries. And thats a reasonable objective considering the fact the risk is about local citizens becoming " homegrown terrorists " and coming home from conflicts in Syria and attacking the country they are a citizen of Now you may believe " but there is no risk from Islamic extremists, this whole thing is a creation of governments to move to a dictatorial system of control " but I think that most of us now accept there is a real danger from terrorist attacks from citizens of there own countries. So we should be supporting these ideas as they do add to better security for all its citizens

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/15/health/feat-ebola-epidemic-hopeful-study/index.html Here is a good news African story, the rate of spread of the virus seems to really slowing down. Well done to the international community for their efforts in coming to Africa and getting involved in fighting the virus. Especially the Chinese and the Americans. The Americans put the most effort and resources into the campaign And there is no oil in these countries and no real economic benefit so this was a humanitarian effort which should be recognised

And? Why do you think this is weird, its the absolutely necessary and expected thing that any government should do after preventing a terrorist attack and still being a target

Not really. The vast majority of people 'buy into conspiracy theories'. There are few people out there so skeptical as to not believe anything, or so stupid as to not think conspiracies happen. There are many though that have been brainwashed to not realize what it is they are even thinking, and that they've been conditioned to not think. You happen to be one of the people who use 'conspiracy theory' as a pejorative. As a student of history you should know better. The entire purpose of 'conspiracy theory' being a pejorative is to marginalize points of view, and stymie questioning and lines of thought that might be contrary to the official narrative as given by government(s) and mainstream media, whatever that may be. Nevermind that what the official narrative is might be a conspiracy theory itself. Nevermind that most people on planet earth have participated in a conspiracy of some sort at some point in their lives. Many of us a great many. Though I suppose this is less true for the growing number of anti-socials out there (as one needs more than just oneself to conspire). If you want to debate and offer other possibilities in regards to 'conspiracy theory' X that's ever brought up, go for it. Do it on the merits of the evidence and those ideas. To dismiss evidence or a possibility out of hand as a 'conspiracy theory' because it doesn't jive with what you think already happened or is possible is foolish at best. I'm not calling people who don't necessarily 'believe in' (it's not a matter of faith for most people) X brainwashed, I'm calling the people who would dismiss X as 'crazy', a 'conspiracy theory', or whatever out of hand before they even consider the evidence brainwashed. They have been conditioned to reject alternative viewpoints and evidence that might contradict their world view out of hand. Sorry Vals but somethings I can just dismiss without the need to have a debate, I'm fortunate like that. I know when something is nonsense

So you think there are no terrorists? From my posts with him he falls more into the camp where most terrorists are the creation of Western governments and there threat is exaggerated to give governments more control of our lives

Agreed but if they pool resources as far as improved monitoring of Internet communication is concerned it makes there overall effectiveness better and they are more likely to detect suspicious behavior I know some people will see this a "more big brother" but its not. It makes sense

I read the article and watched the whole interview with Anita which was painful at times. I want to share my views with you guys as I want to be constructive Firstly Malc raises a valid point but not for the reason he mentions. SJ causes are much easier to get support for from mainstream media like ABC. They have been doing it much longer and as you guys know certain media companies support SJ movement. Does GG have this kind of support so you can also get your message across because it you don't you are clearly at a disadvantage as people outside this discussion will only see one side Just from this documentary you can see how they have positioned GG and parts of it are unfair. Her interview wasnt that bad in the sense almost everything she said did happen, like her having bodyguards and Wu having to leave her house. But of course the context was missing and obviously she only spoke about the bad that GG has done. But she doesn't control the anti-GG movement and can't held responsible for what others say. Yet you guys are really judged and associated with one label for most people. Thats unfair as I said But the documentary wasn't very good for GG, it made it look quite extreme. But there was some alternative views from that Chris Scott guy its just not something most would remember, oh did you notice the "remove hookers from GTA was also raised " ....glad others are also suggesting it so it can't be such a bad idea ? But my point is you need to ask yourselves what you can do about this type of negative exposure? Maybe you don't care and maybe there is nothing you can do, I don't know ? I just know it cant be great to have a news channel and there audience think you are misogynistic, rednecks who are so opposed to change you resort to violence So in summary I do think overall the documentary clearly positioned the whole debate in a very one sided way...so some people will have the wrong idea about what GG stands for?

Not up to your normal high standards of posting hey Volo

Yes I'm very supportive of these types of joint information sharing initiatives Both countries, and other places, have probably invested the most into trying to stop the spread of fundamentalism, Both countries are targets of extremist attacks so its make sense to pool resources

Why who does profit from this ? And please don't say that the USA is behind the rise of Islamic extremism so they can money from it

But if he is using Steam then his games would be working? He is saying his games aren't working? Well, I assumed he meant how a great many games come out full of bugs these days or with serious fundamental design flaws and are really only good (in many people's eyes anyways) after they are modded (if they are ever even good; but modders try). Some games on Steam are very hard to mod or hard to get a mod to work on (ie: most people I know who played Civ4 (I used to play a lot of Civ4 MP) could never get mods to work with that game if it was installed as a Steam game). You probably right but we do need more information about his issue because games do work on Steam and obviously Mods enhance functionality but they aren't necessary?

But if he is using Steam then his games would be working? He is saying his games aren't working?

Your view is not uncommon, many people get frustrated But what games can't you get working?