Agiel

The situation isn't much better for parolees who can be extorted to bend to their employer's will with accusations of drug use on the job, stealing from the register, etc.

SSN-21 USS Seawolf breaks the ice in the North Pole. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/03/u-s-sub-takes-on-russia-in-santa-s-backyard.html Not the first time a boat of her class has done this. Probably the most famous incident was when her sister ship, SSN-22 USS Connecticut surfaced to find that a polar bear tried to take a bite off of her rudder, to no avail:

I almost always play on easy at first - even new games in a series I've played for years on end. Its just nicer to not hit a wall of frustration and you can usually adjust difficulty going in. I kind of have this approach with RPGs after beating them "the real way," where for instance in Fallout: New Vegas I pump up my Courier's stats when she wakes up so that she's a knife-throwing badass on a mission instead of someone who has trouble figuring out which end of the blade goes into that Powder Kegger. Or in Icewind Dale when I import my level 18 characters and play through from the beginning (though I like the challenge of the main game, I'm not a fan of Hearts of Fury mode, to be honest).

As far as sexuality goes, I think there's at least ten times more going on between Snake and the guys on Mother Base when they ask him to beat the crap out of them, or when he sneaks up from behind them and puts them into a chokehold than however titillating Quiet's outfit is.

I don't particularly care for seeded rolls either, since I tend to skew towards letting players play the game how they want to play it (you can bet your ass I abused the hell out of alchemy and enchanting in the Elder Scrolls games). I guess Inxile would be better off just letting the save system be abuseable in the normal mode and just put in the Iron Man mode for the try-hards.

I'm curious as to whether the Effort Checks will be seeded in the final game so as to curb save scumming. If it was, then would probably raise less of a hoopla if they added a difficulty modifier that removed that (and if you did that, it precluded you from getting an achievement or something or other).

I do hope they somehow manage to retain the fluid animations (of course while still making it very responsive). I think little touches in animations really do their part in bringing a game to life, especially with a top-down game,

Actually, this part might have been more apropos to illustrate my contribution: https://youtu.be/faFuaYA-daw?t=50s

Ordered a fancy new monitor this week and had it delivered to my workplace (since if you live in the part of town where I do, you'd sooner trust your sister to Hugh Hefner than your package not getting stolen from your apartment's doorstep while you and your roommates are out at work). Problem was it arrived today, a lot sooner than I expected, on a day where I took the Gixxer to work rather than my car. So I had to leave it under my desk over the weekend, and hope the the technicians don't get any funny ideas when they do their rounds in the studio.

Second Alpha test portion is out now, relating to exploration. Submitted two bug reports relating to the conversation UI and the game being unresponsive if you tab out and click back into the game again.

Though somewhat doubtful that there's anyone here with any interest at all in Christine Love's repertoire, out of some perverse curiosity I did check out that "Ladykiller in a Bind" website that just went up and had one stray observation: How much do you guys want to bet there will be a petition on 4chan and Tumblr to get that thing circled changed?

Welp, David Duke just gave Trump his endorsement: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/25/politics/david-duke-donald-trump-immigration/

Yeah, I guess they're the only ones with problems in the Far East... oh, wait.* *Plug into Google Translate. Roughly, SS-N-18 Mod 1 Stingray liquid oxidizer leak accident in the process of removing from Delta III SSBN docked on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The initial report said they were Marines, though I suppose this makes it even more humiliating for Dae'esh; they couldn't hold their own against an enlisted man from the cushiest service and a reservist.

"Dragon Lady" at 60: http://aviationweek.com/defense/lockheed-martins-dragon-lady-60#slide-0-field_images-1346411

What I see in Iran is... 1. A regime that sees value in what those in the nuclear non-proliferation business call "threshold capability," meaning that the program could, if they so choose and they said to hell with the consequences, be re-purposed to produce a weapon in a very short period of time... 2. A cynical, fascistic regime that claims by an interpretation of Wilayat al Faqih that its word should override that of its toy democracy, has a history of sponsoring assassinations of those that displease them, on the sovereign territory of foreign nations no less, on an almost yearly basis threatens to unilaterally close the Strait of Hormuz (and has nearly done so once in the past) with world-wide repercussions (Korea, Japan, and even China, hungry for energy as they are, would shed no tears should Operation Praying Mantis be repeated in response to this), and supports Islamic militant groups that does its part to seriously undermine the cause of a free and pluralist Palestinian state, has through mismanagement, greed, and certain parts by design stunted Iran's own economic development (it's telling that Iran's short-erm economic woes would likely be exacerbated _because_ of the lifting of sanctions). A regime who, in my opinion, whose days are numbered because Iran has... 3. An educated, fairly cosmopolitan citizenry due to what Christopher Hitchens called a "baby boomerang" as a result of the horrific war in the 80's. One that is expressing significant push-back against the authoritarian regime that rules their country. One that increasingly favours good relations to the west. You may have noticed that hardly anyone has batted an eye at proposals to sell Iran air defence systems and advanced fighter jets. It has been acknowledged that nations are well within their rights to pursue means of defending themselves within the bounds of the NPT, and history is replete with examples of conventionally armed actors triumphing over nuclear-armed states, primarily through exacting asymmetric costs on the aggressor state (and this effect has only been accentuated with the rise of the "media war"). In contrast to a conventionally armed Iran that forces its neighbours onto a reactive footing, a nuclear armed Iran that neglects its conventional forces in favour of a costly strategic weapons program makes them think in terms of being proactive ("How can we take out Iran's nukes?") To better fit that analogy to deterrence, the person being mugged would acquire an explosive vest rigged with enough Tritonal to level three city blocks, haphazardly wired to a leaky car battery (_THIS_ is the danger represented by a nuclear program built outside of international oversight, Israel and Pakistan's included). Frankly, I'd rather live in a world where people tried got along with each other while reducing risk (which is, you know, why there was the P5+1 talks to begin with and the US is actively seeking rapprochement with Iran, even if it meant burning some bridges with historical US allies in the region).

F/A-18 integration tests for Lockheed Martin's LRASM to begin: http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvHlW1h_0XQ

Michael Mann and Christian Bale team up for Enzo Ferrari movie. http://www.slashfilm.com/christian-bale-ferrari/ After a couple of relatively "meh" movies from Mann, and given my speed freak nature, I seriously hope this will turn out good.

If you commit stuff to writing, prepare to defend it. And unlike your nuclear deterrence theory (which remains that*, a theory), I speak entirely of historical experience, of the practical military realities of human fallibility when it comes to complex systems, the illogical nature of brinkmanship, and its potentially monumental cost to human civilisation. You really have some nerve to so blatantly second guess me and while betraying the fact that you have only glossed over everything I've said as yet: Everything I have said so far was critiquing your notion that "A nuclear armed Iran would be the greatest achievement for peace in the middle east", that "An armed society is a polite society." Not anything close to resembling any pro-Israel agenda (and those who know me on this board will say I've been among the strongest critics of the political leadership of Israel and the United States' patronage of it). History has shown us that proliferation of nuclear arms does nothing but put both strategic and conventional forces on heightened alert and the citizenry in the crosshairs, ordinary people not much different than you or me ready to be blotted out at a key-turn, even by accident, a _very_ real possibility, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that a freshly-minted nuclear military arm entering the stage will make that play out any differently. And this goes for just about any country out there. For instance, do you agree that we live in a far safer world where an economically broken country like Ukraine who cannot guarantee to safely maintain the world's third largest nuclear arsenal gave up its own nuclear weapons (I think we do), even though if they had kept it it _might_ (and I can't emphasise this enough, operative word being "might") have made Russia's actions in Crimea and Donbass far more measured? --------------- *The idea that nuclear deterrence is the reason the Cold War ended without a nuclear exchange, and that it will continue to work flawlessly reminds me of this story: A man on a train is tearing up pieces of paper, and tossing them out the window. Puzzled, the other passengers ask him why he is doing that. "I'm keeping the elephants away." He responds One passenger says what they're all thinking: "That's crazy. There are no elephants anywhere near here." The man smiles and says: "Of course not. I'm keeping them away."

I caved as well. Performance was okay but not great on my Geforce 550 (I know it's an Alpha, but I should think the only 3D elements being the character shouldn't be _that_ taxing). I actually dig the fluid animations, which were quite refreshing on the tail end of PoE. Is that opening narrator the same from Mask of the Betrayer?

Watch almost zero TV these days, but thought I'd share:

Phantom Pain won't have pre-loading. Though I lost my interest in Metal Gear Solid at Snake Eater (I actually really dig the truly prescient post-modern navel gazing of MGS2*, and I far prefer the idea of the Patriots being the will of the United States made manifest rather than them being AIs), I got it if only for the sake that I should have something to put that AMD R9 FuryX I ordered through its paces.

Hilarious, when you keep bringing the theoretical into the discussion. and... The point of my posts that you spectacularly ignore is that contrary to your, as Herman Kahn would call it, "sloppy and emotional thinking", "a nuclear armed Iran" (and you can insert nearly any other country in that space) or even a world where a credible nuclear weapons program can be acquired by nation states as easily as I a new Gmail account carries a very high probability of escalation through a costly arms race and more. As opposed to the current paradigm where sabre-rattling and border conflicts would at most result in a few dozen military casualties between conventionally armed forces for a given incident, a misstep with nuclear weapons as a result of carelessness, lapses in security, sabotage, rogue launches et al. means civilian casualties that are at minimum in the thousands, and unlike conventional forces that you can stand down and withdraw, you absolutely _cannot_ recall a warhead descending at Mach 12, and contrary to what the movies might tell you, neither can you remotely steer it into the ocean (though small comfort if the guy who pressed the button suddenly wanted to take it back, "no one would ever know, would they?").