Valsuelm

Having not played it I cannot comment with certainty about what could be improved upon. That said. The one thing I know for certain that I want to see about the next PoE title is that it is a direct continuation of the story. A true sequel in the sense that BG2 was, where your main character and at least a significant amount of your party members are present.

Not sure if I ever posted this here before or not, but I imagine some here will really enjoy this one:

The anime that put anime on the map in the U.S. Great movie. Great tune. Here's a song from a game that did for a certain game system, what Akira did for Anime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BAycHXiyjE

You guys don't seem to know what 'uppity' is.

And you are a troll.

I'd wager a lot that they're going to diminish the significance of this character in the show. The significance is not easily explained, and the way they've handled Bran's storyline all around really hasn't been good. It's probably the worst handled so far of all the storylines. Season 4 really took a massive turn for the worse I think. For the most part (Rob's girl being the biggest exception) the changes in the first few seasons were understandable for production reasons. ie: Abridging scenes, merging multiple characters from the book into one, Tyrion getting bonked on the head in season 1 so they didn't have to show the awesome battle where he fights rather than is passed out, the conversations on a beach between Davos and Stannis rather than at Dragonstone so they didn't have to spend a lot of money portraying that castle, etc. In season 4 though there are multiple instances of completely new, unnecessary, and really just 'what are you doing producers showing us this crap while at the same time ignoring important story elements'. The Brienne and Arya scene is another example of this. CGI skeletons are better eye candy and people can more readily grasp the significance of the White Walkers than they can the characters that you mention.

And here we have police beating kids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwdzAVLY5QU This is actually all too common. Similar things have happened more than once at the various high schools in my area in the last decade or so. There's really no good reason for the vast majority of schools to have armed cops or security working there.

No NFL Team is worthy of such a good tune.

Ahhh Sinatra. Good song, and no one did it like her daddy did.

I think if you think that applies to the current conversation as it so far has gone in regards to any kind of negativity, you're seeing something that isn't there. That said, I've noted that whenever religion of any kind is brought up on many internet forums, very often some folks get over-sensitive 'ZOMG we're talking about religion! And two people are seeming to be disagreeing! Halp!' It's unfortunate as I think the topics of religions and spirituality are often potentially some of the most interesting conversations to be had. @Marcvs - I never did base that on two people, as I previously stated in this thread, before you joined the conversation. That said, I'll drop this conversation all together at this point as things are being misperceived and this is a topic that folks tend to get passionate about, sometimes hot about. Though I don't think we're even at a lukewarm stage yet, someone apparently already thinks otherwise.

Crime rates in Japan have exponentially more to do with the culture there than the way laws are enforced. This is generally true of anywhere.

Always a sad day when a library goes up in flames.

You say you're an atheist, and that you pretty much view God the way Fry does, which pretty much is just a confirmation of what I said, then go on to say what I wrote, which you just confirmed, was nonsense. Misunderstanding what I wrote? Or does it bother you that you have an archetypical view perhaps?

Awesome? That's an overstatement. What's made better? Nothing. Those scenes are really relatively minor and the fact that they are there doesn't change a huge aspect to the story, as some other changes have. And ha! at what you think is lameness. Insofar as Joffrey (this is how you spell it), ordering what he ordered in the show as opposed to Cersei ordering it in the books. I chalked that one up to production, and the need to abridge the story (it's easier and more importantly quicker (takes less screen time) to have Joffrey do it and look like a two dimensional evil nut, than to explain Cersei's reasoning). It certainly doesn't add to Joffrey's character I don't think, and if it does anything it takes away from the depth of Cersei's. Either way it's a relatively minor change like the Arya/Tywin scenes. Not really. Quite realistic. Just because you yourself perhaps was incapable of all that or maybe even many of the people you knew were, doesn't mean everyone is. Especially in the context of the times. ie: your average teenager of yesteryear was very arguably capable of a lot more than your average teenager of today (they're too busy playing with electronic toys and living insulated lives). At no point in the books did I ever think, 'Na... someone that age wouldn't possibly do that'. I can easily see a kid doing everything that Arya does, and if there's a character that most who think as you do can't wrap their heads around, it's probably her. Some kids are capable of far far more than many adults will ever give them credit for. I'd actually say in the case of Joffrey, his character is immature for the age given in the TV show (17-19). Granted, in today's age of increasingly extended adolescence where people take longer to mentally mature if they ever do, you'll find some 19 year olds (and even people many years older) exhibiting his petty behavior, but it's far more common and fitting amongst someone younger ie: 13-14 as he is in the books.

They are. That you'd even bring them up shows how little you know of the differences between the books and the show. How stupid are you to say the show is better than the books before you've finished reading them. Why bother reading them if you're so convinced the show is better already? Stop the nonsense and/or trolling please. Your three points with spoilers (probably minor for you since you already know of Stoneheart) discussed a bit below:

Police are not allowed to fire upon fleeing suspects in any jurisdiction in the USA unless the police have probable cause to believe that the fleeing suspect poses a real deadly threat to themselves (which generally isn't the case with a fleeing suspect) or others. That of course doesn't stop police from making stuff up and/or shooting people anyways, or DAs looking the other way. Here's two examples of that: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/police-aggressive-action-mother-kids-resist-arrest-20911308 (the case against the mother is still pending last I looked, though the officer firing the shots was at least fired, and the felony charges against the teenage son were dropped). http://gawker.com/dad-calls-cops-on-son-to-teach-him-a-lesson-cops-shoot-1460159897 (in this one however the cop got away with murder) People (including cops and DAs) watch too many TV shows and movies.

This coming from a guy who hasn't read the novels...

Considering every time they've diverged from the books its been handled horribly, no, not good. Can't say I care too much. I lost interest a few seasons back and only watch the occasional highlight (Red Wedding, Viper/Mountain) Pretty much agreed. Season 1 was handled very well I thought and there was very little divergence from the books (most dialogue was taken directly from the books word for word) other than the additional sexual scenes (as if there needed to be more as there's plenty in the books, but HBO still added more, and the girl they added in to be Rob's love interest. Season 2 not as well, but it still had some great episodes. Season 3 the divergence from the books was getting bigger and not for the better, Season 4 was downright bad in many episodes (and couple of them I don't think a single line of GRRM's dialogue), and I almost stopped watching. I'm not going to watch Season 5, given that there are bound to be even bigger divergences not for the better as well as spoilers to the books. I don't even want to know how the TV show is going to handle what in many book readers minds is the central mystery to the entire series (and likely the most central underlying plot line, though that remains to be seen for certain) that the TV show has pretty much completely omitted, as well as what I personally think is the secondary biggest mystery and underlying subplot, which has been completely ignored in the show.

Wrong. You shoot until you are safe. Anything else is secondary. You shoot until the *imminent* threat to your or someone else's life is stopped. That may result in the attacker's death, but resorting to deadly force at the drop of a hat and beyond the immediate protection of your own or someone else's life will land you in jail. Remember that aggressors also have rights, even if they are acting unlawfully. As far as I know, the law generally doesn't permit you to arrogate for yourself the right to kill someone (except perhaps for soldiers in combat), though death may be an unfortunate consequence of the use of force in self-defense. Using force with the intent to "permanently incapacitate" (i.e. kill) is murder. We have some actual lawyers and prosecutors here so perhaps one of them can explain it better and share some experience with actual deadly force cases. In all fairness, you don't "shoot to incapacitate", as far as I'm aware. When I was trained to use firearms, both in the military and as a bodyguard, it was made very clear to me that I should never draw a gun and point it at somebody unless I was prepared to and justified in killing that person. Not threaten, not incapacitate, not grievously injure, but kill. Not because killing the target was the goal, but because as a firearm is by its very nature deadly, death is a likely outcome, and therefore resorting to it must not be trivialized. The bottom line is that firearms are good for killing — under what circumstances killing is and ought to be a part of law enforcement are different issues. In this particular case, it's hard to judge. Personally, I'd hope that if a teenage daughter of mine, deranged or no, threatened someone with a knife, attempts would be made to resolve the situation without deadly force. Again, without details, it's all pure conjecture. What the law is, is going to depend on where you live. In the US, different states have different laws in regards to what you're supposed to do if someone comes after you with a knife, a gun, or whatever. In some states, there's a 'castle doctrine' or a 'stand your ground' law, where you have the right to use deadly force if you reasonably believe your life or someone's life that you care about is in immediate danger. In other states, you are generally obligated to retreat if at all possible (even in your own home). An example of the former would be Florida, and you might recall reading or hearing about that law there coming under critical fire when the Zimmerman-Martin fiasco happened. An example of the latter would be the wonderful communist state of NY that I live in. Both types of laws have their problems, which come to light when they are enforced (or aren't). A bad side of the 'castle doctrine' or 'stand your ground' laws is that some police and DAs will just allow a person to murder someone and get away with it if they say they felt threatened. As we know, police do this fairly often, and regular citizens do it as well. On the other end of the spectrum where such laws don't exist or the law states you must retreat if possible or some such thing there are some insane examples of people using force or threatening force in the face of imminent danger being jailed out there. ie: I recall reading of a semi-famous story a few years back of a guy in England who was sentenced to jail time after firing upon some thieves in his house (he killed one), and another story here in NY where a guy was arrested and charged (not sure if he ended up going to jail) because he fired a rifle into the ground as a warning to a large group of gang members who began congregating in front of his house (he was understandably concerned for his family inside). That was downstate, you aren't as likely to find such insanity upstate as you will in and around NYC. Which brings up the fact that the discretion of the local district attorney is going to matter a lot in cases involving one person using or threatening violence against another in self defense, as well as the fact that some cities (generally the very large ones like NY or Chicago) have their own laws in regards to what you're allowed to do with a weapon and how much force you can or cannot use (generally speaking the larger cities will forbid rather than allow). You are 100% correct in that you shouldn't be pointing a weapon at anyone unless you already have justified reason to use it. Cops are about the only group of folks I know of that handles weapons regularly that thinks it's ok to point a weapon at someone or threaten using it pretty much whenever they feel like it. That said, of course there are some good cops, but they really seemingly are outnumbered, or at least as has been previously mentioned over and over the would be good cops don't speak out against the bads ones, which makes them bad themselves. @Woldan - I'd love to see the statistics of how many people are shot by police and actually live to tell about it here in the US (the statistics for this are available nowhere that I'm aware of). While anecdotal, I don't read too many news stories where the cops shot someone and they live to tell about it. More often than not it's a case like the one with this girl, where multiple cops fire multiple rounds at the person. I imagine it has a lot to do with which police department we're talking about though, as some certainly are more trigger happy than others.

Are you going to sit in jamas on the couch and eat lots of chocolate now?

So who would have been a better candidate Bruce?

What we clearly see is that the officer attacked her first, after she appears to be non confrontational at least in a physical manner (can't hear what she says; but people aren't generally allowed to assault others based on what they say). Based on the video, the shooting (as well as the assault preceding it) looks unjustified to me. That said, it's near impossible to make a judgement call on this one without audio or more information than the video shows. Note that the person killed was a white female minor. Cops will assault and kill anyone, you don't need to be a black man.

Are you kidding? Not only is he a well spoken erudite, he can sing and dance!

I've had a lot of conversations with atheists. I don't think there was one that didn't share Fry's view. Yea, science is given as a reason often, and might even be the first reason cited (likely because it's what you hear about most in pop culture so that's the first thing that pops into their head) but engage them past that aspect and they pretty much say what Fry says. What Fry says is even a common criticism and quandary amongst those who do believe in the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God. A common myth these days is that people who do believe in God don't question aspects of their religion or even the entirety of it. Of course there are some that don't, but many if not most do at some point or even throughout their lives. And various people have come up with various theories/answers to those questions.

Interesting? That's the pretty much the most common archetypical atheist viewpoint.