taks

by definition, an ethic is a rule that everyone in a certain group/community/organization agrees upon. morals, OTOH, are personal ethics (sort of). taks

i've seen only half a dozen bags and, in act 3, i finally got my first 100% bag. FWIW, i've upgraded to 1.03 but have not played since. i have had very few problems so far, so i'm hopeful it will stay that way. i won't play again till the weekend probably. taks

there's a lot of things happening with the entire market right now. that's what's making everything so expensive. major GPU upgrades, major CPU upgrades (which means major mobo upgrades and major memory upgrades), major HDD upgrades (though relatively inexpensive) coupled with a new defacto standard interface (PCIe) forces a one-time "upgrade everything" mentality. i'm afraid to buy anything that isn't "new" simply because i don't want it to be outmoded in a year, i.e. the money will be wasted otherwise. what's the scoop on mobos that you're waiting on, meta? taks

uh, that adds up to $1390. sound (card + speakers), hdd and cd/dvd add about another $300. so ~$1700 for a fairly good system. oh, i tried to add this also but hit the wrong key... anyway, pricewatch is a great place to find the deals. i'm not sure if there is a "localized" version for non-US shoppers, however. rosbjerg is outside the US, correct? taks

the same reason i'm holding off for the moment. the biggest gain from going with the core2 system, btw, is that future upgrades will be a bit easier to swallow. i.e. all you have to do is drop in a new CPU for the next several years. the current upgrade scenario to get from low-end to middle of the road includes mobo/cpu/video/hdd all in one fell swoop. once you make that leap, it won't be so bad for probably 3 or 4 years. taks

unfortunately, i would not recommend anything other than a core2 at the moment. you can get a reasonable cpu/mobo combo with an E6400 @ 2.13 GHz for under $350 anyway, which will put to shame all but the most powerful AMDs at the moment (which will cost even more). with the new duos, you don't really need "high-end" memory, but 2 GB is still going to run into the $200 range. anandtech has a good review for budget memory that performs nearly as well as the high-end stuff. the seagate ST3250620AS would be my choice for HDD. 250 GB with parallel read technology (it's the 7200.10 version) is doing well for me now. about $80 at newegg. audigy 2 for sound. under $100. i think i have the gamer variety. the Logitech X-530 5.1 speaker system sounds excellent for about $75. if you want more than 70W per channel, it'll quickly get up to $200, however. i'm not sure what to recommend for video, however, as that market is strange right now. i'm an nvidia fan, personally, but the release of the 8800 means the 79xx variety will be dropping in price soon (already started). i wouldn't worry too much about 512 MB memory, btw. most cards with that much (or more) use lower clock speeds for the memory controller which results in reduced bandwidth. either way, you can get something good for under $200. make sure you get a good power supply. newegg has the truepower trio, 430 W antec supply, for $93. cd/dvd read/write are obvious. they're pretty cheap, too. all of the above is about $1200 US. if you can afford to go to $1500+, you can probably get into 2 GB memory and an E6600 @ 2.4 GHz (or even an E6700). taks

yeah, that's a bit of a "duh" for most seasoned gamers. heck, i make sure to reboot windows alone at least once a week, hehe. probably not nearly as necessary as it was with previous iterations of that virus, but one can never be too sure. linux rarely needs reboot. of course, linux isn't quite as "feature rich" either... taks

of course, there is a futurama episode that contradicts you, meta. in the end, however, leela decided that being "average" was not, at least for her, desirable. taks

uh yes, for sure. taks

yeah, related, of course, but definitely not requirements of one another. pure democracy would be horrible. pure "good government" requires a level of altruism (or maybe logic) i don't think humans are capable of. i think gromnir is right, btw. it is much easier to pull off when everyone thinks similarly. taks

because they need people to be afraid and continue spending money to "fix problems." taks

that's ridiculous. and, for the record, the government _has_ been left to bush and people like him for the past 6 years. no closer to "benevolent totalitarian government" now than ever. taks

uh, no. taks

could be potions or scrolls... taks

i think this article's measure of "democracy" should be labelled more of a measure of "freedom." civil liberties do not a democracy make, but they do imply a measure of freedom. of course, i still do not understand how an oppressive taxing scheme is not considered an infringement on civil liberties while tapping phone lines of suspected terrorists is... personally, BOTH should be given weight (though not necessarily equally) as the former really does amount to robbing peter to pay for paul. also, most "democracies" in the world are not actually democracies, but republics. true democracy is indeed as bad as any communist regime every wished to be. taks

most professional societies have a ranking vote. i think the IEEE gives each member 5 votes (can't recall as i never vote in their elections) with a ranking from 1 to 5. highest point total wins. this would be difficult to implement on a large scale election (think the hanging chad issue was a problem?). taks

btw, sweden is not completely socialist, either. it has a very heavy capitalist influence and an abundance of natural resources that "fund" its social programs. as for anyone that claims to like taxes... well, you're probably not capable of figuring out what i think of that. hehe. taks

socialism can exist within democracy, i.e. government is not dictated by socialism (though it is self-destructive anyway). it is the most moronic economic system ever invented. taks

why that does not surprise me i'll never know... perhaps it's because you spin 'em with vologic then beat 'em over the head with a stick before asking "would you like to join?" taks

there's gotta be something else going on that's impeding performance with some players. wistrik, your system is about the same as mine and i rarely dip below 20 fps indoors, even zoomed all the way out. nearly 60 outdoors sometimes, though usually in the 40+ range. the only real difference is that i have an IDE drive (7200 rpm WD) and a vanilla 6800 AGP with all the pipes turned on. i do have a better soundcard, however, the audigy 2. maybe that's the killer? older SB cards had serious issues and full HW acceleration actually slowed down the system. that was normally related to an issue with the southbridge, which does not exist in the same manner on an HT enabled system... hmmm. taks

friedman won in 1976. hardly any rational economists are keynesian anymore. from a greenspan speech: taks

i think there is a way to respawn, and thus reset, NPCs. check gamefaqs for the code (assuming the NWN1 codes are the same/similar). taks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> it is not uncommon for game CDs to be unrecognized by a CD player. i'd recommend taking the game back to the store and getting another copy. if that doesn't help, then try another CD player. this problem is typically worse with CD R/W drives, from what i've seen. another option is to get one of those drive cleaners as his read head may be dirty enough to cause problems with some mass produced disks. taks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> sounds like this guy does not have a supported vid card, or he does not have directx updated. taks