BruceVC

Seriously bro, that's three passive aggressive questions (the first one, unquoted, was genuine enough). That's a cheap technique when Bruce does it and it's a cheap technique here. Take your own advice from the bottom one and just ignore the thread if it offends you or doesn't interest you. If mootykins and 4chan are so very insignificant the thread will be dead in a few days anyway. (meh, 4chan. Usenet OGs know where the original anarchic anything goes pseudo anonymous posting 'boards' were at, and they didn't have some all powerful 'admin' running everything. Until asterisking Google tried subsuming everything into asterisking 'Google Groups') You seem to think making a relevant and important point is "passive aggressive " ...don't be so sensitive. Learn to take constructive criticism in the way its intended...constructively ?

Its okay Sarex, I'm still around. Thats almost as good as the pretty women thread...and I look okay in a speedo

Okay, well I guess we will never fundamentally agree on this one I absolutely believe that under any president or prime minister the state of the economy is one of the real benchmarks to measure if that person did a good job overall Its appears most people here don't see this connection and believe that the president or prime minister makes no difference to the overall state of economic transformation I can cite dozens of examples where, for example, African leaders have come to power and by the end of their leadership the economy of there countries have effectively collapsed or are in a worst state But its fine, no one has to give Obama credit for the state of the USA economy. I'll continue to do it

This training I have been on in the UK is drawing to a close. Its been excellent, I can't stress enough just how good its been For starters its been at the actual software vendors HQ, so we have people who are responsible for writing code and deciding what features to put it attending the courses. Its very rare that I get to interact with people on that level. And they have been very honest about what works and what doesn't and what we would like to see in future releases as partners and resellers. And then I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the various guys who also work for partners throughout Europe and the UK. So I have met guys from Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Denmark, France, Turkey,UK, Belgium and the Middle East. And chatting to them and interacting its very interesting to see how their sales cycles work and what their customers want and what sells in their regions. Because all of us are technical we get on very easily and swop " war stories " about our experiences And we have been spoilt with excellent food..I mean really good food. Last night we had a function with free drinks, lots of free drinks so I imagine there will be many people feeling very tender, I left at 11 pm because I didn't want to be hangover for the last day And after the course today I still have 3 days in London to do some sightseeing which I'm very excited about Oh the weather has been freezing ...I'm obviously not use to this type of cold but I have learnt a few lessons about dressing appropriately so its all good now

Alright, I'll bite: what did he do that positively affected the economy? Barti, to be honest thats very long and complicated, here are some of the things he has done that are shown in a more joking way http://whatthe****hasobamadonesofar.com/ http://www.bspcn.com/2010/10/18/things-obama-has-done/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/11/03/what-obama-has-done-not-what-he-says-matters/ Read the last article from Forbes, it was written in 2012. Read the first two paragraphs where the writer says " Having steered the U.S. economy into a ditch that he created given his unfortunate reprise of big government spending and big regulation liberalism last in vogue in the 1930s, President Obama—remarkably—is asking voters for another term. Unfortunately, the problems created and worsened by our 44th President are far bigger than he is" and " After four years in office, the President of the United States is offering us nothing more than slogans about binders, Romnesia, and taxing the rich. How sad and small. After four years of persistently high unemployment, Obama’s campaign pleas of new plans to address joblessness ring flat and hollow" And ask yourself if that reflects the reality of the USA now? In other words he was judged directly on the unemployment rate and state of the economy yet now when things are good " "its not because of Obama and we refuse to give him credit" So its lose lose for him ?

Thx for the translation

Well I give up, I'm going to stick to people who agree with me when I say " Obama has done a good job as president for the USA "...you guys obviously need another 8 years of George Bush to remind you of what a bad president really is But on a serious notes as TN said the lack of recognition for Obama is something as an outsider I clearly don't understand. Despite some of the reasons given he should be given credit for the recovery of your economy, if the USA unemployment rate was same as when he came to power and the country was in the same economic malaise people would be saying " he has been a terrible president...he couldn't even get the economy working....what good is he " So all Im going to say is the actions and decisions of any president of any country have a direct correlation to the state of the economy. And when Obama came to power the USA economy was facing certain serious and severe challenges yet now the USA is really recovering economically. Maybe some food for thought ?

I'm pretty sure that legitimacy comes from governments, it is immoral as **** but legitimate. Should tell you all you need to know about how moral governments are. Yes that may seem unfair but legitimacy does come from governments and organisations like official military missions from the likes of NATO I mean we know NATO isn't perfect but its not like they are an unrecognised and brutal group like ISIS?

Thankfully some positivity at last from these forums around the state of the USA and Obamas speech, you are my hero Leferd. I want to marry you I'll respond in more detail later to other comments (Vals, Orog and others ) , I'm about to start my training course so I don't have time now

NATO was involved in an official military campaign against Serbia due to there military campaign in Kosovo https://cpj.org/2002/06/former-rts-director-convicted-for-failing-to-prote.php The TV station was a source of Serb propaganda and used by Milosevic to justify there actions in Kosovo and therefore a legitimate target. NATO intention was to get Serbia to pull out of Kosovo The only people who have justified the attack on Charlie Hebdo are the Islamic extremists themselves ....huge difference. They have NO international credibility.

Sup All So the release of PoE is relatively imminent, 2 months or so. Its been an amazing roller-coaster ride. Some of us have been following this game since KS release and some of us have participated in the Beta, kudos to those Beta testers who probably had some frustrating moments but ultimately helped contribute constructively towards the stability of the overall gaming experience for non-Beta testers like me But my question is when PoE is first released there will still be some understandable technical issues. And Obsidian, as most software companies do, will release that first initial patch\update after about month or so..so my question is who is going to wait for that first patch before playing. Or are you far too excited and will be playing PoE the moment its released I generally wait for that first patch

There were also some clever and humorous responses from Obama, he said " I have no more campaigns to win, my only agenda '" ...and he was interrupted when some Republicans started clapping. Obama smiled, looked to his left and responded obviously out of script " I know, because I won the last two of them " Very funny response

So I watched large parts of it and I was very impressed, especially with all the irrefutable positive developments that have occurred under Obama's presidency. He really needs to get some credit, I obviously don't get it because despite all these positive steps people still seem to dislike and criticize him "as the worst president ever ever " So lets discuss the truth and fiction around parts of his speech American unemployment rate lower its ever been since 1999 The American economy is out of the recession and has achieved the best recovery of any country since the financial crisis of 2008 America is less dependant on foreign oil than its ever been in 30 years Obama has effectively ended American major military American involvement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan despite a time under Bush where American commitment to these conflicts seemed interminable Increased Tax rates on the rich will help the poor and middle class So to our American friends, are you not happy with the State of the Nation? I always though the economy was one of the best benchmarks to measure a US president ...and your economy is looking great?

I really respect the way you are raising your kids to understand things like the Civil Rights movement, you put real effort into it. I think you are a good dad and display really good parenting values ( well if I had kids I would try to follow the same values ) I'm interested, did your parents take you to places like the Civil Right Museum when you were growing up?

I actually don't get the point of that Chomsky article, what is he trying to say? Are we now going to look at the last 15 years and analyze every instance of collateral damage or mistake made by the West during its various military campaigns and say " the West is like these terrorists ....why are we not protesting against the West because of what happened 15 years ago in Serbia" or other example? And if we are talking about that specific example that Chomsky mentioned, yes journalists were indeed killed when that broadcasting agency was bombed. NATO didn't know that they were in the building but the broadcaster was a legitimate target of the NATO airstrike campaign. This is absolutely not the same thing as the Charlie Hebdo intentional slaughter of people who worked at the magazine Not sure why people think " this is such an insightful article "

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-20/the-sun-strips-page-three-of-topless-girls/6028872 Another possible dark day for freedom of choice boys, the Sun newspaper has decided to remove topless pictures of glamour models from page 3 . Various feminist campaigns have raised their concern around how these models were portrayed saying it was sexist and objectified women Personally I'm not sure if I support this move as I have just watched several interviews on Sky with various models and they all say they were paid good money to pose in pictures and they considered the pictures tasteful and also that they weren't feeling objectified in anyway So the question is " do these models have right to decide if they want to go topless " ....or do we let members of civil society tell them what they should be doing ? You could argue the models don't know what there pictures represent symbolically ...so maybe its not up to them to decide. But its not like its full nudity so I think the models should be able to decide for themselves?

I tried to explain this when Anita was in that ABC documentary. The biggest problem facing GG is the public perception that faces it, you guys just aren't getting your message across in the right way. You are seen as misogynistic and bigoted by many . http://imgur.com/18tAMJ2 That's couple days old. GamerGate has shown that simply because you control the Narrative, it doesn't mean you control the public perception. Thats is interesting, has there been a " right to respond " officially given to GG by ABC to explain their side of the debate? Has ABC apologized, because to be honest 25 K people voting down the video on Youtube doesn't mean much for the millions of people who follow ABC, don't care about Youtube and believe what ABC talk about ?

I tried to explain this when Anita was in that ABC documentary. The biggest problem facing GG is the public perception that faces it, you guys just aren't getting your message across in the right way. You are seen as misogynistic and bigoted by many . I don't know how you will resolve this because "anti-GG" has the ear of mainstream media And its understandable because SJW have for years been building campaigns and cementing relationships with certain media houses because the message from them in its basic form is a good message that most people agree with, " we want equality in society" ....what person with a semblance of a moral conscience is going to be opposed to this? So GG is trying to take on an established social giant that has real resources. The bad things that "anti-GG" do is generally ignored by civil society because of all the good the movement does and what people believe is the right thing. Is support for "anti-GG" sometimes misplaced and unfair. Yes it is but it doesn't change the reality of the support they receive from people outside of gaming

This is priceless - Bruce did you seen it? Its your utopia right here, man you would love to live in that xD This was very funny imagine a world that controlled....it would not be worth living Of course we need some laws around certain social behavior but not that extreme

I doubt that the air is that bad in your cities, I'd have an easy time believing you if you were talking about one of the cities wich has notoriously bad air quality, but to me it sounds psychosomatic or similar really. Unless you're talking about standing next to an motorway in rushhour. Yeah I tend to agree, its highly unlikely that the air pollution is anywhere near that bad in Austria. As you said its probably psychosomatic because Woldan is use to the outdoor lifestyle and openness of the mountains I remember a good quote from a movie I saw recently that aptly describes how I feel about living in a big city " the only thing better than leaving the city for a weekend getaway is the return trip coming back "

You say he is anti- American yet you can't deny his films raise some real issues around the events in the USA in the last 15 years, like Fahrenheit 9/11 ?

I agree, Russians expected an economic nirvana when Communism collapsed. But instead under Yeltsin things got worse on many levels. Then Putin came along who successfully negated the power of the Oligarchs and gave Russia nationalistic pride in itself again But he has gone too far in his efforts to achieve Russian hegemony, his impressive use of propaganda still ensures his popularity ratings are very high but there are always consequences for this type of blind ambition. Just the fact that the average Russian thinks that the illegal annexation of Crimea is not only a Russian right but perfectly legal tells me how misinformed Russian people are about what is acceptable around there global ambitions and what the international community will accept I see this is South Africa, because not everyone has been economically uplifted since the end of Apartheid and there are now established political movements that talk about " nationalisation and ending white control of the economy "....they think that you can sustain wealth by taking from people who have created it through hard work and diligence. They think that the government are best people to own all resources and manage economic growth. Despite the fact our government is failing to maintain almost every single parastatal in a profitable way and on a regular yearly basis most South African parastatals need taxpayers bailouts just to keep going. And then we have the history of the African continent and the calamitous result of where many African governments decided to implement nationalism, after Colonialism, to grow there economies...and the result was bankrupcy. Yet people seem to just ignore history and think that economic policies that have generally failed in the African context will suddenly work in modern South Africa

A disgrace, another excellent example of Putins " Democratic and progressive " Russia that he is steering the country inexorably towards So basically Russia won't be tolerating any internal artistic criticism of their culture and society. I wonder how Michael Moore would do living in Russia

Yip you sound like a redneck ...if you think Austria is morose and melancholy then you need to avoid the tubes in London. Everytime I travel on them I notice how miserable everyone looks, but its probably just the fact people are going to work, I'm sure they aren't that unhappy if you had to talk to them

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