Kaftan Barlast

I dont believe there is any other intelligent life in this galaxy, perhaps in some distant cluster of galaxies somewhere else but the odds that it would occur in our own are too small. Even with the several hundred billions of stars in the milky way. Bacteria, spores etc. is a different matter though.

Ive been playing Jade Empire, and going from OE's influence system to BioWare's where companions gradually reveal more about themselves the further the story progress/you level up felt like a big relief. I was suddenly free to chose which companion I wanted with me at a time, without worrying about levelling up my influence with a character whose backstory I was curious about. Sure, if you dont have the right companion with you you might miss out on their interjections in conversations, but that doesnt feel too bad in comparison with influence where you will miss opportunities to gain influence points, and thus miss out on companions and their full story arcs. The pro's of the influence system is that it simulates social interaction and makes it possible for the designers to create points in the story where the outcome depends on how close the PC is to a certain NPC. The downside is that it effectively turns dialogue into a game where you must find out which lines to click in order to gain the most points. Which is not what dialogue choice is about at all, you're supposed to be able to roleplay. You choose your replies after how you think your character would respond(or just what youd like to say), but influence encourages you to select the replies that will give you points. Sure, you might argue that a real roleplayer does dialogue the way he wants and doesnt give a damn about the consequences. But then you will miss out on things. WHat do you think?

Being extremely childish myself, I still remember exactly what it was like when I got dropped off at Dagis when I was his age. I was very sad and cried all morning but once I got together with the other kids and started playing I was more than alright. They let 14-yearolds have babies down there?

We already use a similar system in Sweden(berg/jord-v

Sounds like Indonesia is desperate to be all cool and swim against the current of popular western culture. Soon you'll all be dying your hair and wearing dark makeup, while writing ridiculous poetry and murmuring about "conformists".

Yes, that's correct. Foreigners are smelly.

A Finn is claiming that we are the gayer country?! Finland, the very birthplace of the entire leatherman/sailor gay genre? bah! I say.

This week is Pride week in Stockholm, the largest homosexual-ish event in northern Europe. Politicians are there, the media is there, the gays are there.. even my *** of a *** 'faux-lesbian' vegan ex-girlfriend is there. And they're all shouting about gay rights here and queer and gender issues there, which is their right. Except, In Sweden, the gay rights movement won the fight years ago. They can get married, they can have kids, you name it, and apart from the occasional fruitcake(pun), no one can even be bothered to muster dislike let alone hatred. Being gay in Sweden is about as shocking as being left-handed. And yet when you hear the talk going on at Pride, it seems like these people were speaking out against slavery or dictatorial opression. They've won the battle already, but refuse to realise it, kind of like a soldier who's afraid of peacetime because then he will be without purpouse and without meaning, so he keeps fighting a pretended enemy. Which is annoying to everyone else. So, how are the gays in your country doing? (this post is semi-serious)

It's not a proper Aasimovian robot, as its remot-controlled by a human. So i think Isaac can rest easy for the time being This is alot like a miniature STUG tank as was seen in WW2. And a tank without the ability to aim its main weapons independantly of the direction its travelling is severely crippled in combat. With the lag from the remote control, the enemy will be long gone from the time the operator locates his target, to the time it will take for him to turn the robot around, aim and fire. Its cool, but I doubt it will work.

There are alot of these motivations that I really dont understand at all, like "64. I felt sorry for the person." -Having sex with someone out of pity? I suppose this might be a woman-thing. While others are crystal clear: "The person was too "hot" (sexy) to resist." or "23. The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex with him/her." So you're denying that stupid and ugly parents breed stupid and ugly children?

One serious question I have is why does the president feel that the Federal Prosecutors need to be loyal to his goverment and politics? And are they supposed to be, or has is it just modern political practice?

But why cant they just say "We got rid of those guys because they werent loyal to us" ? Why all the pretending and not-answering of questions?

But what gets you the most isnt the fact that they got rid of a whole bunch of federal prosecutors, it's the way they go out of their way to obfuscate everything concerning the affair. Clinton got rid of 93 of them and was like "meh", while George's people are doing the whole "I am not presently disposed to discuss wether in fact I can neither confirm or deny that I might be considering not commenting on this supposed thing that may or may not have occured." My fave so far: "I am not aware of any other US Attourney that was asked to leave, except in some instances where people were asked to leave quite frankly because there was legitimate cause" "So youre saying these(the eight) were asked to leave without legitimate cause?" "Uh, no..." and so on. :D

Not-so-latest-news: BUSH KEEPS ROVE FROM TESTIFYING SPARES SENATE FROM YET ANOTHER TEDIOUS GO-NOWHERE HEARING Y'all know K-dog aint gonna say anything anyway, so what's the point? Acting from his known sense of mercy and humanism, president Bush used his 'ol executive privilege to exempt Rove from testifying. Fearing another hearing like that of Alberto Gonzales might compromise the mental health of the Committee. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6927206.stm

I was even thinking or getting a dual-CPU system with 8 cores in all. I seem to be doing more and heavier rendering, so I really feel the need for some serious processing power. Mostly because I want to be able to work or read forums while Im waiting for a rendering to finish.

You can get a Core 2 Quad for the same price now with Intels big pricecut ..and yes, even normal people can use quad-core. Fiddling around in a program, starting another while watching a film at the same time youre unpacking a*.rar files is one good example where it comes in handy.

I think the expansion sounds great and Im pretty much guaranteed not to be disapointed. I loved the Nwn2 OC even though it could have been much better if development time hadnt run out. The D&D buffs I know are much more concerned with improving the framerate than if the game follows the rules or not. If you want genuine D&D then you can just play ToEE for a while.

The idea is that a woman is the responsability of her parents until she gets married, after which she is the responsability of her husband. Obviously there are exceptions, and I think that a American family would try to get their daughter back aswell if she'd joined some weird cult.

But how long can the US really afford to keep troops in Iraq? And where does the money come from? Hurry up! walk without rythm and we wont attract the worm! p.s raising your own salary when youve already got teh big $$$ is just despiccable.

I find the whole thread humorous. I wonder how many pages will it last? I think I blew my best material on page 2 (http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=47592&view=findpost&p=792258) and with my luck this thread will be locked by the time i get out of bed tomorrow

I think it should be illegal for anyone to hate America p.s and only lesbians listen to the Knife. the fat, ugly kind of lesbian that actually are lesbians and not normal drunk girls trying to seek male attention.

I just saw Smultronst

Im sorry, I just love America too much to allow you to do that. Who needs reason when you can just go with your gut feeling and sound beliefs? In fact, isnt it the very definition of freedom to have the opportunity to do that? The very same principle of freedom that this great country was founded on. Was Aron Burr using reason when he challenged Alexander Hamilton to a duel to the death despite Hamilton having a win ratio of 21:0 ? Was Custer using his reason when he decided it was a good idea to charge 10000 heavily armed indians with only a handful of men? No they did not, because they had the freedom to be unreasonable to the point of suicidal stupidity and THAT is what the United States of America is all about. Reason.. is for pussies. note: yes, I know Burr won

What SOAD, RATM and other multiple-word rockbands are doing is just baby politics. They download "propaganda and control of the public mind" by Noam Chomsky and are instantly transformed from rockers to pundits. Im not sure what the right wing counterparts read, maybe Ann Coulter for the really hardcore. What I dont like is when I cant be bothered to either argue OR find an angle to make fun of them. Like now.

I felt very odd to read about it this morning, but the man lasted 89 years