Drowsy Emperor

Pretty miserable treatment for their flagship game, considering how large and well funded Valve is.

Does anyone know why Valve has practically abandoned HL EP3?

Its the principle of the thing. You're losing something (offline mode) that you're been used to since forever for no justifiable reason and getting nothing in return that you wouldn't get anyway (battle.net). Bad trade is what it is. Other than that its not really an obstacle for most people - maybe for those that use a laptop for gaming and move around a lot.

You'll run out of area to explore 5-10 minutes in any direction. It aint that hard.

You are a loathsome individual. You're Australian.

If they wanted to make it more annoying and obstructive to having fun they should just bundle iTunes with it.

Sneaky ole bastard aren't you

This outcome is the reason I said he went about the wrong way in fighting multiculturalism.

A gazillion. Or about as much as a Chinese item farmer. If auctions will bring in real money they'll quickly adapt and corner the market. The comparison has crossed my mind. I wonder how much they earned. Also, lets presume that leveling will be much faster than in WoW. If so, access to high level endgame loot drops comes much more quickly and easily. I assume that means the prices will be even smaller than in WoW. Nothing; they are serving 3 consecutive life sentences on Chinese prison and forced to play WOW, tragic fate really. The last part is what makes it tragic.

Stronghold Crusader (first time) AvP2 Primal Hunt Quake III CS 1.6 Age II

A gazillion. Or about as much as a Chinese item farmer. If auctions will bring in real money they'll quickly adapt and corner the market. The comparison has crossed my mind. I wonder how much they earned. Also, lets presume that leveling will be much faster than in WoW. If so, access to high level endgame loot drops comes much more quickly and easily. I assume that means the prices will be even smaller than in WoW.

I assume the prices in real world cash will be rock bottom except for some very rare items.

I'd normally agree with you, but on a tiny island with no means of escape? The way it seems the only thing separating you from death is his potential lack of thoroughness. How long did it take the police to respond anyway?

Ow, that's a killer for me as well. Pity.

There has been a new addition to the family: Steelseries 9HD mouse mat - around 30-40$ This is hard plastic mat. Its got three layers, the top rough surface, the hard plastic inbetween and the rubberised layer that holds it down. The rubber does a good job, I haven't had it move so far. The pad is very thin, 3mm I think. Both the Logitech MX518 and the Orochi glide beautifully on it, although the crappy plastic feet of the MX518 don't offer as much control as Orochi's teflon ones. At first it wasn't easy getting used to it, after a lifetime of cloth pads what with the huge speed increase in mouse movement - but after a while it became perfectly natural. The way you can control small movements and rapidly move it if necessary is something cloth mouse pads aren't as good at. I noticed an increase in aiming agility in Quake III, but at the same time a drop of accuracy in CS1.6 as I tended to move the crosshairs too far. The marketing info isn't lying, the surface really increases mouse responsiveness and precision by a little margin. Supposedly something about how the little bumps reflect light. It comes with a little cleaning rag. Overall: i feel it was worth the money. I'll be using primarily this pad for now.

How much real world money do you people think it'll be possible to earn?

That's really what was crossing my mind. Its hard to accept that your life may be so fully out of your control.

Hahaha. Irony. *sigh* mockery gets you nothing. If I wasn't being clear on an issue (and it happens obviously) at least ask for clarification before resorting to it.

Don't be absurd. I was just listing anything related to possible "combat readiness" and bodybuilding is supplemental training at best. I weight lift myself (moderately) and its a great help in strength building for other unarmed combat training: martial arts/boxing/mma. Overall though unarmed combat has a very small role in military training regimes serving more to sustain physical readiness and troop competitiveness than increase combat proficiency.

Disciplined "lifestyle" while planning (claim supported by skimming through journalistic entries) - not disciplined killing. I don't think he even did army service. The only semi-combat related skills he had were bodybuilding and target practice. Therefore the notion of a sort of "military discipline" can be safely thrown out of the window.

I knew about the policeman, so what? Dude, I'm not saying they had 100% a chance to do anything but the numbers are what they are - 1:76. Its simply a lot of people and he pulled it off too easily. He would have had to change clips at some point (even though a well trained individual can do that really fast) and couldn't possibly be aware of so many people at all times. A healthy adult can no more take a thrown brick to the head than anyone else. This goes a lot into the "what if" territory but there simply was very little resistance, or so it seems.

That is not how proponents of multiculturalism/political correctnes treat tolerance in practice. There were 76 of them. Even with panic, and most people not being of the confrontational sort its remarkable that no one had the presence of mind to do anything at all. People have been killed by a well thrown rock you know. PS: You don't disarm people wielding a knife. You either shoot them, throw things at them or run. Everything else is suicide unless they're a completely inept punk. Although most people that brandish a knife, are really looking for a way not to use it. If they wanted to use it, you'd never get to see it before its too late.

Its not going to happen. The recent revolutions in the islamic world point to this. The west conveniently chose to view them as cries for "democracy" which they assuredly were not. They were cries for a more legitimate government than the various dictatorships and everyone knows who has the ultimate legitimacy in the Islamic world - the priests. The revolutions point to an erosion of secular authority within the Islamic world (besides who can conceivably rouse the people without support from the priests?) - and some countries are going that way even without riots, like Turkey. Let me remind you that Turkey was the most secular country in the region and that its shift to a more Islam infused policy is very much indicative of what the future holds.

hey, freaking shot in the dark but do you wanna talk about the bombing sometime? I don't know what more there is to say. I pointed out the man is not like the media portrayed him, judging by his manifest ("christian fundamentalist") and that he's more of a self proclaimed revolutionary/terrorist than a rampage killer (the sparing of the 11 year old suggests this as well). I believe the parts about his alleged organization are true, but its also evident that he cut connections with them some time ago and that they would not approve and support what he did. The attacks speak to a high degree of dedication and planning and a lot of discipline if he indeed pulled it all off by himself. The choice of targets has a sort of logic not exactly often seen on the far right. Most right extremists target whoever grieves them, which is usually some "other" although in most cases it is "your own" that are at fault (who did let the immigrants in after all?). Evidently Breivik was not as stupid as most in this regard. However the picking of children as targets undermines a lot of politics in the issue, because even he had to know that they're not a legitimate target in "revolutionary struggles". No one is going to be wooed to the cause of a child killer. That speaks to attention seeking and egoism/mania. Also another thing to note is the strange ineptitude of the victims. 76 of them could not conceive a way to incapacitate or kill the man while he slaughtered them like sheep, with a single gun? Not all of them were teens from what I gather.