BruceVC

Sup All I'm sure some of you are aware that Zimbabwe is going through an election at the moment. The last 3 elections haven't been free and fair and the same political party, Zanu-PF, and the same despotic leader Robert Mugabe has been in power for 33 years (seriously how can you have the same person in power for 33 years) Anyway this current sham election in Zim highlights one of the biggest issues that face Africa, that issue is where certain countries governments lack the political and democratic electoral credibility to say they are legitimate rulers of a country. So the result of that is a lack of investment and there economies don't grow. And you can understand this as why would a business or government want to make serious investments in a country where there is political uncertainty and political illegitimacy? So then you have organisations like the African Union trying to rubberstamp elections in Zim, already they are saying "these elections have been free and fair" because they think somehow this will change the reality. Just one example why these elections in Zim cannot be seen as free and fair is that the voters role was only released one day before the election !!!. How can you expect an opposition party to review the voting role in 1 day? Just from the initial assessment of the voting role there have been close to 1 million names on it of people who are dead so who knows the other irregularities that will be uncovered when a proper analysis is done. So what does this mean for South Africa and the neighbours of Zimbabwe, these countries are desperate to extricate themselves out of the economic crisis that the last 12 years has created, they want the Zim economy to recover as many countries in the region have had to absorb the economic and political refugee's from Zim. In South Africa we have 1 million Zimbabweans living here. The Zimbabwean people are very educated and hard working but we have our own issues around unemployment and we can't have thousands of foreigners living on our social services as already our system is taking strain. So unless the Zim opposition party wins, The MDC, the Zim economy won't be recovering and the people of Zimbabwe will have to endure another 4 years of hardships and lack of real investment. It never ceases to amaze why the AU can't see that by endorsing false elections you don't help the situation at all

Wow guys at least you are admitting your platitudes are nauseating But on a serious note and this is not directed at GD and his decision. I find people generally say what is expected of them and give advice on subjects as it sounds like the right thing to say instead of the actual right thing to say. Its just easier to do that but when it comes to people I care about I am generally honest. So someone comes to me for advice about there relationship and says " I really love my b-friend and I'm pregnant. But he is going out every night with his friends and his mom really doesn't like me. Now that I'm pregnant our families want us to married" I could easily say " yes get married, you are pregnant and I'm sure you can resolve these issues" and give her reassurance. But I refuse to do this. I would typically say " you cannot proceed with this marriage unless certain things change, his family need to accept you and he needs to communicate this to them. Love is not enough in these circumstances and if you get married now just because you feel its the right thing to do you are going to have major issues later on " I am simplifying my point a little but I think you know what I am trying to say

No telling yet. Considering that it's not taking place on Columbia, all bets are off. That's a whole other batch of circumstances. I mean I know it's the 50's and all but I doubt a father would lit a cigarette for his daughter. Cigarettes were considered as smoked vegetables in the 50's. They were borderline recommending giving them to babies in place of formula, or so I have been told. No that was Coke-Cola, and it was a true recommendation. But never cigarettes

Hopefully the second time will be the charm! Wow GB, that is huge news around the proposal, gratz. But don't you think you rushing things and what if she says no? Bruce, for someone who constantly pushes for romance in video games, you don't seem very supportive if it in real life. Anyways, good luck GD. If she says no, request kinky sex. To be honest I hope GD isn't offended but I really like and respect him so I feel I have to ask. He has only been dating this lady for 3 months? And I just want to make sure he isn't rushing things

Hopefully the second time will be the charm! Wow GB, that is huge news around the proposal, gratz. But don't you think you rushing things and what if she says no?

Would he really go to the press and just "boast" about a falsified story when he's got $2.9m in possibly rabid fans out there? I don't see why this is so suspect, it's not like it's a Bethesda game. I may be wrong but it seems like you are saying Fargo is being honest? I also think he is

I love the fact that you can kill absolutely anyone in the game and if that person was critical to furthering the story, oh well, deal with the consequences, find a different way to proceed. I've always felt that was a better way to proceed than invulnerable characters or essentially a clone taking their spot. Anyway, this all sound really fantastic and it sounds like Fargo & Co. are swinging for the fences. 3 thoughts: 1) I hope this doesn't go the way of Broken Age, I hope Fargo has done a better job of managing the funding and staying within what they can actually accomplish with the money, because this sounds really ambitious 2) This sounds great, but will they actually follow through with this or is it just boasting? 3) I'm usually in favor of releasing a game that's as bug free as possible, but if they're going to keep pushing more reactivity into the game until the last second that will undoubtedly mean unforeseen breakage at launch, and I'm actually fine with that. I can deal with bugs and breakage for a few weeks/months if it means a more lifelike breathing world. Wow, that interview around W2 sounds amazing. It sounds like RPG heaven, I've never played an RPG that will allow you such freedom and of course consequences. I like the concept of your Rangers turning against you. Guys I'm suuuuuper excited about this game

You need to give us a detailed update of the highlights around the trip when you have time

I knew you would come around to my suggestion, Vegas Baby yeah !!!!

Okay some of those pictures and associated lines were hilarious But the one with the kitten pushing its face on the carpet was one of the cutest things I've seen in ages

Yeah, I did take him to the vet to make sure there was nothing super obvious, like a throat tumor or mouth ulcers or something (had a cat with a face tumor, once...), but nothing initially. If he had little/no appetite, that would be disease-worrying but doesn't seem to be the issue. Just finicky. Maybe his sense of smell is going... Ah well. Okay well keep us updated on his progress One of my lady friends works at Hooters and she has this kitten that she absolutely adores. Anyway this kitten loves water and is fascinated by the bath and when water runs. Her b-friend was running a really hot bath and the kitten was doing its normal thing and watching the water run from the taps, he left the bathroom and the poor kitten fell into the bath and into the hot water. It was very badly scalded by the boiling water and has been in the vet the last 8 days in intensive care. She is absolutely devastated and so far the bills have cost $1000, that may not seem like a lot for Americans but in South Africa that's a huge amount to spend for a pet. And she is paying it irrespective of the cost as she really loves this kitten

Shame LC I'm sorry to hear that But I know what an excellent owner of your feline friends you are and you are doing everything humanely possible to get him back to health

Yes you are very pleasant and reasonable, you are only malicious and vituperative if you don't support me in the implementation of Romance in PE

You are a racist Alan, Volo has spoken. But even worse you are evil, I hope you can deal with this stark and unequivocal assessment of your life

Are you looking to get laid and party or something more touristy? I was thinking something romantic. My girlfriends birthday is in October and I wanted to surprise her with a vacation somewhere exciting. From what I'm seeing though Italy might be a hell of a lot more trouble than I thought. It seems to require a lot of planning to actually see all the interesting places. It's something you can just go and do when you feel like it. I was actually looking at the US Virgin Islands but October is the peak of hurricane season. So, now I'm looking at Jackson Hole or Hawaii Come on GD nothing beats the Strip in Vegas for a bit of romance, and you don't have to fly very far?

Well its good to you see acknowledging your stupidity, the first step to dealing with any problem is accepting it

Say guy who never been in Russia, and probably never meet with true Russians ( majority of "Russian" emigrants on the West are not Russians IRL ).Per my entire life in Russia i only once see prostitute-girl from Ukraine ( quite ugly ) in Moscow hotel, and visit strip-club 2 times (slag-parties, striptease-girls looks not bad, but not perfect ). Obviously, i talk not about such poor girls. You right I haven't been to Russia but you should come to South Africa or go to Dubai. You'll meet loads of hot Russian strippers. But we also have Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romanian and many other East European girls working here. I can promise you the Russian strippers are amongst the most beautiful, the problem is they are just after money and you can't have a real relationship with them By the way I have no issue with a person who is stripper as a job, I don't judge people and I know its a tough life. But the facts speak for themselves, we do have loads of Russian strippers in South Africa

So then, why is it not the parent's responsibility to monitor the child? Its not like there aren't local solutions to blocking a child's access that doesn't make it a mandatory for all users unless they opt out. I'm not sure if I understand you but at the moment the government feels its not assisting parents or rather making the jobs of parents easier as at the moment porn access is unrestricted. There is no enforced filtering. So with the proposed legislation there will be no porn access unless a parent allows it. Its a measure they think will help as at least they can say " this was the parents choice to allow access" Note I use the porn as an example but it could apply to other types of possibly sensitive websites. At the moment there is no system that automatically blocks access to certain websites in the UK that is legally mandatory, that's the difference between the current law and the future. I don't agree with this, I think its stupid and will be ineffective but this is the way the people proposing this monitoring see it.

No his analogy is relevant as the law is intended to prevent minors accessing porn and other possibly harmful websites. If you are 18 then you could open an account at an ISP and request any filtering to be removed In both cases the child's access to porn is provided by the parent. Parent gets an ISP and leaves the child unmonitored on the internet has provided the child access to porn. Parent goes to the newsagent, buys porn and puts it in a box in the middle of the room and leaves the child unmonitored in the room has also provided the child access to porn. In both cases its the parent purchasing and then providing the access to the porn; the ISP's aren't opening up accounts to kids and selling them porn just as the newsagent isn't. The question is, why is the ISP liable for the parent's lack of monitoring and not the newsagents? Okay if that's what you meant then I agree, the ISP isn't liable but it will restrict access. However in the context of the newspaper example if the parent requests access than a child can use there account and access porn and it would be the same example as a child reading a parents porn magazine left on a table. 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? There is very advanced firewall and monitoring software that will be very hard to bypass that companies, governments and ISP can invest in. For example end of the day TCP/IP uses a routing technology to send data. So an ISP gets an assigned range of IP addresses and this clever software would track any IP address that uses its gateways. If you are using some sort of Proxy the software will pick this up as the IP address gets translated or just say this is an invalid address. Also they have the ability to look at data within the actual IP packet, so they wil see references to hotporn.com and block communication. In can be done with the right technology

Isn't your internet example not equivilent to selling to a minor at a newsagent, but selling to a dad at the newsagent who then hides his purchase by putting it in a box in the living room labeled "porn - do not open"? No his analogy is relevant as the law is intended to prevent minors accessing porn and other possibly harmful websites. If you are 18 then you could open an account at an ISP and request any filtering to be removed

Another post that made me laugh

And I don't get what's interesting about a Fighter offering deep insights like "I am Remond of the Nine Hills and I hate Orcs! Hurrrrrrrr. Feed me strawberries to keep me happy." The Ultima companions were a compromise between interactivity (they offered some unique dialogue every now and then) and leaving all strategical aspects to the player. That post made me laugh but can you Romance puppet characters ( come on I had to ask )

I mentioned this before but the Chinese ownership through Huawei of the suggested monitoring software should be the biggest concern to people, Huawei has been linked to software espionage in the USA

I also don't see what is interesting about puppets?

Basically the law if enforced will automatically block certain websites, like Adult Movie sites (porn) You would then have to contact your ISP to get the filter removed. The idea is an underage person wouldn't be able to remove the blocking as they wouldn't be the actual owner of the ISP account. There parents would be so in theory this would stop kids watching porn unless there parents say its okay