Drowsy Emperor

If I was to draw a conclusion from that it would be that the 90% of those not in the elite, don't work? Because they aren't all first generation immigrants. Besides, that isn't really relevant to the question I was asking. The US is a large economy and some individuals, like Schwarzenegger, come a long way from nothing. But an individual should not have to be as rich as he is to be able to afford good education (that would not send a family into debt), health care, etc. for his children? Or even necessarily in the middle class, let alone the 1%? If there is so much wealth to go around (and there is, many times more so than in France, Germany, UK etc.) then why are some of the basic services a government should provide on the level of a third world country? The last official comparisons placed US health care in the same category as Cuba. And Cuba has been living under a US enforced embargo and in poverty for over 50 years. You don't need to be rich to afford a good education in the US. What is wrong with taking on debt to pay for school? It's part of a social contract, they are offered at extremely low interest rates, and you are given a long time to pay them back. I certainly don't regret the $40,000 I spent on college and grad school, I've been paying it off slowly over the last decade and now only have $7k left on the loan. That's without my parents help. My parents paid for my first year of school, which came out to about $10k. After that I got a part time job and managed my debt carefully. Some people make dumb decisions about how much debt they take on, but there are plenty of chances to succeed without drowning yourself. I'll agree with out health care being screwed. I've got insurance and I still have a pile of ridiculous medical bills sitting on my desk right now. Why take on a debt when the state can provide it for free, or close to it?

If the game is open world and much larger than Witcher 2 I wouldn't be surprised that it ends up looking more or less the same as W2. W2 is still the best looking RPG of this generation. That said, the way this franchised turned from an underdog success, with a pleasant, almost depressive eastern european atmosphere and decent humor to bombastic high fantasy full of itself killed all my excitement for it.

200 people were arrested, presumably there were many more. Can't imagine they rounded them all up

I thought this topic could also be useful to pile in some of the board game adaptations of computer games people here know. So for all Master of Orion and space 4x lovers we have: Its heavily abstracted of course since its only cards and plays in about 20 minutes, but I've played it.. a couple of hundred times. Available on Board game arena.

I have only one question.. are there phd courses in English :D

If I was to draw a conclusion from that it would be that the 90% of those not in the elite, don't work? Because they aren't all first generation immigrants. Besides, that isn't really relevant to the question I was asking. The US is a large economy and some individuals, like Schwarzenegger, come a long way from nothing. But an individual should not have to be as rich as he is to be able to afford good education (that would not send a family into debt), health care, etc. for his children? Or even necessarily in the middle class, let alone the 1%? If there is so much wealth to go around (and there is, many times more so than in France, Germany, UK etc.) then why are some of the basic services a government should provide on the level of a third world country? The last official comparisons placed US health care in the same category as Cuba. And Cuba has been living under a US enforced embargo and in poverty for over 50 years.

223 people arrested in NY protests.

And the cardboard president of France blocking the delivery of Mistral warships to Russia, (after saying for months on end that the ships will be delivered) opening France to a law suit with massive penalties and the troubled shipbuilding industry without new jobs and an influx of money, not to mention making the entire country look weak and undependable, for the sake of taking "decisive action against Putin". Talk about cutting your own nose off to spite your face. de Gaulle must be spinning in his grave.

You seem to have a thing for Dungeon Keeper. There is a board game adaptation called Dungeon Lords, you might want to check it out. It has the players building up a dungeon, recruiting creatures etc. for a few turns until adventurers invade. Its a great game, but a heavy brain burner. There's no online adaptation though at the moment. You never know what might grab you when you least expect it

The great irony being that American money post WWII made it possible in Germany, but American money can't do the same in America.

It would be a case of simplifying if I was directly comparing a country that's rich like Norway, but has a small population, but when you compare the standard of living of a large country like Germany, with 80 million people it becomes directly comparable to the US, even though the US is so much larger. Germany bled itself dry in two world wars and has managed in 50 years to rise out of the ashes provide a better system for its people than the US, that has not had a continental war in over a century on top of becoming incredibly rich and dominant world power at the time the entirety of Europe was turning to ruins. Are you seriously going to argue that it was easier to solve these issues in germany (wealth redistribution, rebuilding a state, a health, education and social system) from '45 onwards than it was in the US in the past 100 years?

The thing with the US system is in its paradoxes - richest country in the world yet incredibly poor wealth distribution, very high crime rate and poor social/health system compared to other, less wealthy western nations. Few Americans are aware just how much better the overall standard of living is in many western european countries compared to how weaker their economies are to the US. I've yet to meet anybody from the US that's really willing to give the issue some thought and draw the obvious conclusions.

Dangerous as compared to what, there were 800 deaths among construction workers in US in 2013 and its safe to assume that bad injuries that were not included in the statistic account for at least three times as many people, if not many more. Policing is more dangerous than paper pushing, but its less dangerous than many other occupations that don't receive much recognition and definitely no special status in society.

What about Western (Yank) aggression and interference? No such thing in Bruce's world. And he doesn't feel sorry either, he feels the Serbs deserved the NATO bombing and by association would probably prefer if Moscow was a smoking crater. Germany (and the EU) is the biggest loser here. Taking a hit almost as bad as the Russians are to their economy... to support US policies and destabilization of europe. Perpetuating NATO presence in europe instead of building up an independent EU armed force. Nothing to gain out of the Ukrainian war and everything to lose in the long run. The EU actually let the US block the south stream gas project. It left Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and others holding their **** instead of tying the continent together and helping avoid future conflict. Weak the lot of them.

There's no denying its better to comply than anything else but that's the rational response and most of these situations are not rational in nature. If everyone was always thinking straight we could probably cut the number of police and courts in half. In both the Garner case and this case both of the men were both essentially afraid to go to jail and Garner at least, maybe could have been persuaded to come to terms with it. When you watch the video the two cops are walling him off and waiting for backup. You can tell by their body language that they've already chosen their course of action and are not really interested in defusing the situation. The law may be the law, but you can't ignore the psychological aspect of it all. A carpenter that only has a hammer in his tool box isn't going to be much of a carpenter. The conclusion that I draw from this is that US cops are simply less hesitant to use deadly force than cops in other western nations. And it ties into the previous comment of everyone living in fear of everyone else.

and we have a new one http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/04/phoenix-police-unarmed-man-killed-by-officer/19878931/

I'll never understand the mythologizing of police in the US. Now while there are many more dangerous jobs its true that few are as ugly on a day to day basis. Spending so much time around the worst dregs of society takes its toll much faster than most jobs. But they aren't "putting their lives on the line" and all that hyperbolic nonsense, if it were so, they'd be dropping dead left and right. Opinions on police differ across Europe but nowhere do I see the "boys in blue" nonsense or the special status US cops seem to have. In Serbia, its a running joke - you become a policeman if you're too lazy to go to school. The public views them in a completely dispassionate manner, no more heroes than any other worker. Their safety is not more paramount than anyone else's, and why should it be?

Risk, Scrabble and Monopoly get the same reaction in the board gamer community as farting at a funeral Pseudo elitism aside, there are many many better games available but they don't have the power of the major toy manufactures to back them up

Well if its not the "choking" (upon viewing the video it would appear the cop is not executing a real choke hold, although with the man being so fat and in poor health, even the act of being handled this way contributed to his death), or the "piling on" what's left to fall under excessive force? Or is excessive force the actual decision to use this kind of approach in this particular situation?

It is true what gromnir says - subduing someone without hurting them is a very difficult task, particularly if they go all in/drugged/mad. Hell, even wrestling for fun with my gf who is 5ft4 and 130something pounds is hard when I have to watch out for her at the same time. And I'm 6'3 208 pounds. That said, I don't see the man being sufficiently violent or even the possibility of becoming violent to warrant choking him and piling on top of him. Its bad handling and bad policy to treat a hooligan out for a scrap and a fat middle aged father of 5 the same way, even if he is a small time criminal.

I wasn't sure where to put this, as these are neither "real" computer games nor fit for PnP. I guess that for all intents and purposes a digital version of a board game is the same thing as any other digital game. The point of the topic is to introduce people into the world of "designer" board games in which more and more publishers embrace making a parallel digital version or allowing online platforms to do it for them. One such platform is http://en.boardgamearena.com/#!welcome Board game arena is completely free to use and the games released there were done in a deal with the publishers. It has quite a few popular board games and about a thousand people online most of the time. Another platform is VASSAL, which is an open source application that allows you to run modules that you can download from the VASSAL site. Most modules are made by the board game companies themselves. The downside of Vassal is that it doesn't automate much in general - most moves have to be done by hand (mouse) so a lot of the bookkeeping is a tad tedious to do on the PC. Steps for maximum ease of getting into this hobby: 1. Visit boardgamegeek.com and look through popular games to find something you like 2. Check out videos of the game on Youtube to see what it plays like 3. Find the online platform that allows you to play it 4. Download pdf rules from designer website, learn them 5. Profit Alternatively: 1. make an account on en.boardgamearena.com 2. look at the step by step plays of games available there, videos and rules... spectate a few games 3. start playing

I'm not saying his death wasn't an accident. But why was a choke hold applied in the first place? He wasn't violent, merely resisting. Did he really need to be choked?There was no attempt to calm the situation down, several cops just pushed him down on the ground... and he died. If there are no grounds for a criminal trial then there must be some other way for a semblance of justice. I've been choked in martial arts class and choked others - the experience isn't pretty and is possibly the worst way to try to defuse a situation. Once you start to be choked the first instinct is to fight and resist more rather than let go.

If the Ferguson case was debatable the Eric Gardner one is despicable. A non-violent man put in a choke hold by a cop resulting in his death. Anybody with a basic knowledge of martial arts knows that the choke hold is very dangerous because there is a chance that the person will not merely fall unconscious but die as the brain is starved of oxygen. This is completely out of control of the person applying the hold and is only really justified in extreme circumstances. The man died and today it was decided that no charges would be filed against the cop. Even though this was all on filmed on camera.

I'm not sure of its veracity, but I heard a rumour at some point that Mr Hauer ad libbed Mr Batty's final monologue. Personally this is why i'm foolishly clinging to a little hope that Cyberpunk 2077 may be a little something more than its contemporaries, they cite Blade Runner as a prominent influence, and Mr Pondsmith certainly seems to embrace that genre. Gromnir is right, Hauer trimmed down the monologue to the final version and apparently Scott liked it so much he gave up on the version in the script. Something like that anyway. ....Incidentally, the scene with the dove has been modified in the final cut. Its no longer the jarring transition to a metal pipe and a clear sky, now the dove is flying between buildings into the permanent darkness of the rest of the film. Probably excessive as Gromnir says but much better than the original soul>heaven allegory. I mean, the allegory is still there but not glaringly so. I wouldn't hold my breath regarding C2077. Whenever anyone cited BR as inspiration its inevitably the aesthetics that get a homage (copied without innovation in other words), which, while masterful are not the "heart and soul" of the film. There are probably a few dozen films that try to look like Blade Runner instead of trying to be BR.

well, how 'bout the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDlTGd7Y9U arguably The best sci-fi movie... evar. is nothing wrong with a sympathetic villain, but they can't be handled same as the monster-under-the-bed. is a problem chris avellone had with darth mush-mouth in kotor2. can't have a nameless and faceless evil that you then give a face and a voice to... and try to explain motivations. sauron works 'cause he is evil. grendel works in lit 'cause he is a monster. frankenstein's monster, on the other hand, had very real and understandable motivations. is frankenstein's monster sucky 'cause we know why he hates dr. frankenstein or that the monster is kinda emo? we didn't like either anakin actor and the writing for the characters were clear not helping us appreciate the performances. then again, we didn't like luke much better. is any number o' times we wanted to reach through the screen and smack luke... same for young and younger anakin. we could list relative strengths and flaws o' star wars films, but hasn't that been done a trillion times by literally millions (billions) of fans? HA! Good Fun! Roy Batty's final understanding of the humanity Deckard lost elevated the film to something truly great, but the actual monologue was excessively melodramatic. Still my second favorite sci fi film though. Its interesting that the only person that doesn't get this is Scott himself. His dumb insistence that Deckard is a replicant completely undoes the point of the film. Surprising considering how much better BR is than ****'s book. Lucas was never as talented though. He is most adept at leeching and simplifying the ideas of others. Indiana Jones is a watered down version of Corto Maltese. The star wars universe is a hodgepodge of various influences. Judging by his later directorial career, he simply got lucky with the first SW film.