Humodour

Quite simpley, I was stating that the islamic world has fallen from grace. To cut to the chase, in the dark ages, the islamic world could be considered more civil than it is now. I do not intend to tar all with the same brush, I have infact had the pleasure of knowing many moderate muslims. These people give me some hope. By the 'Islamic world' you really mean the Middle Eastern world. And yes, even 100 years ago it was more civilised than now. Wahhabism and similar extremist lines of thought spread like wild-fire in that area the past century. I distinguish 'Islamic world' from 'Mid East' largely because that is the way things are; Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Albania are all clearly Muslim dominated and yet are by and large developed, civilised countries (Lebanon was on that list till Hezbollah got involved - it was the Switzerland of the Mid East). Heck even the North African Islamic countries (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) are a cut above what you find in the general Middle East area (Yemeni, Somalia, Pakistan and Iran included). Reading properly, it seems that Visceris already made this point quite clearly, yet you chose to ignore him and push your prejudice instead. Nice. I'm not playing, I'm too tired, maybe tomorrow. I look forward to it. OMG I don't even.

Interestingly the causes for my depression weren't just physical factors, and yet fixing all three of these physical factors you mention cured it. I'm pretty sure physical factors cured it because the underlying mental reasons for being in the depressed state essentially remain.

Hopefully you're referring to others (but I really can't tell who - everyone in this thread seems a separate entity), but because I'm still irked off that a certain moderator accuses me of being LoF (and used the possibility of banning him permanently to try and threaten me - again, go ahead!) I want to clarify that I am not him, and being accused of being him is pretty insulting, because I agree with him (and the way he acts) about as much as I do taks. /insecure rant

No, because faith has never provided any observable, measurable results. Science has. Faith moves men. End of. That could help justify its usefulness but not its correctness.

Most of us (except perhaps some Americans with their weird obsession with Creationism) learnt about viruses in biology class. We learnt about how they are technically not 'alive' but nonetheless came to consider them as 'close enough' due to their similarities to other living things (not to mention that they evolved from living single-cell organism). Well, now kids in biology class are going to have to contend with prions as well - rogue self-replicating protein strands responsible for things like mad cow disease. As was, I guess, inevitable due to their ability to replicate/reproduce, it has been shown that prions also evolve (e.g. drug resistance). Differences from viruses: a) they don't have DNA/RNA because they didn't evolve from an organism (though they ARE made up of peptides like all proteins) b) they aren't cell-based like all known viruses and organisms. c) they reproduce by converting existing healthy proteins into diseased ones one at a time - this is unlike viruses, which can infect their host, create multiple copies of themselves, then leave/die (though often the host is simply fully consumed in the process) http://www.physorg.com/news181466564.html Anyway the reason this is so interesting is that it's a good example of evolution as a mathematical optimisation process rather than a biological process because this clearly demonstrates that you don't need nucleic acids (RNA/DNA) for evolution (as has been obvious to many computer scientists for a while now). Any self-replicating system exposed to randomness in its code will evolve. Note: not just mammals are susceptible to rogue proteins - at least two forms of fungi are as well.

Quite simpley, I was stating that the islamic world has fallen from grace. To cut to the chase, in the dark ages, the islamic world could be considered more civil than it is now. I do not intend to tar all with the same brush, I have infact had the pleasure of knowing many moderate muslims. These people give me some hope. By the 'Islamic world' you really mean the Middle Eastern world. And yes, even 100 years ago it was more civilised than now. Wahhabism and similar extremist lines of thought spread like wild-fire in that area the past century. I distinguish 'Islamic world' from 'Mid East' largely because that is the way things are; Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Albania are all clearly Muslim dominated and yet are by and large developed, civilised countries (Lebanon was on that list till Hezbollah got involved - it was the Switzerland of the Mid East). Heck even the North African Islamic countries (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) are a cut above what you find in the general Middle East area (Yemeni, Somalia, Pakistan and Iran included). Reading properly, it seems that Visceris already made this point quite clearly, yet you chose to ignore him and push your prejudice instead. Nice.

What university you went to means **** all compared to the skills and qualities you can physically demonstrate. AFAIK they don't hire based on the university you went to (does any employer these days?). Unless maybe if it's Digipen!

I'd better finish up buying the stuff I want on Steam and GOG. Hopefully the cheque has cleared in my account by now.

The correct phrase is actually "correlation doesn't always equal causation", because it often actually does equal it. Still wrong. The correct phrase is "correlation does not imply causation." *sigh* Yes.

Any sane person who get angry at home and forget about it, not protest in the street and cause destruction of property.

The correct phrase is actually "correlation doesn't always equal causation", because it often actually does equal it. I highly doubt it. It's well known that lack of sleep, and displaced sleep patterns mess up neurotransmitter levels in the brain (especially serotonin). In fact, serotonin imbalance is why people often get migraines, auras, and tension headaches when their sleep patterns are disrupted. Guess which neurotransmitter is the main one implicated in depression? It would be easy to test whether it's correlation or causation by deliberately depriving a healthy individual of sleep, and I imagine they've already done this. Honestly people who read a brief summary of a study and then spurt out "correlation, not causation" annoy me (and no offence to you, smart arses on Slashdot do it all the time). One thing I will point out is that while it's fairly clear (and this isn't the first study) that sleep deprivation often causes/triggers depression, it isn't the only thing that does so, and thus good sleep patterns (8 to 9 hours each day always in bed before midnight), will always help those who are depressed, that doesn't mean it'll make it go away. No, but if you did it consistently (i.e. every day) your body would grow used to it, mitigating the negative effects. I imagine you're like me, though, so I doubt you keep that sleep pattern consistently. You also have an elevated risk of heart attack being awake that late/early in the morning (in the period when the body expects sleep), although that shouldn't bother a healthy individual much.

This is obvious to me from personal experience. Bad sleep patterns like this are also strongly correlated with a wide range of diseases later in life (even after accounting for other factors like fitness, smoking, etc), effectively knocking a decade or two off your lifespan.

You think BG1 is a grindfest but think Mass Effect isn't? Something does not compute.

I think it's potentially what the original Baldur's Gate was - a prequel and a prototype to a brilliant game. A good game in its own right, but hardly flawless. Based on what I've seen of ME2, it will be relegated to the same role BG1 had, having played it makes you appreciate the sequel more and fondly remembered, never booted. It cost me a lot more than 4 euros, and I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of it over the last 6+ months. It's funny because BG1 was better than BG2. Story-wise, yes. In technical and design execution, no. I found BG1 more free, less angsty, and prettier. BG2 lost its soul.

i don't care what plato argued, classical greece was not a period representative of what i originally proposed. do some better research, find a different period to prove your point, this one ain't it. i did, and i have. i suggest the same to you. it lasted through the classical greece period which pidesco claims refutes my theory about absolute power, the period in which greece is known for its intellectual advancements. not the period referred to as "classical greece." this is easy to find out, had you bothered to look. this is not unlike that comment in the windows7 thread where you failed to actually read the article, right? knowledge is the enemy of tyranny. you, and many others that post in these silly threads, however, are not. taks If we go back and look at what you originally said - that any one group being in power is the enemy of progress (citing ancient Greek democracy as a deceptive example to back this up) - you were clearly wrong, and that is what I was referring to. The social, intellectual, and technological progress that came from Rome and Greece was done mostly under various forms of authoritarianism and dictatorship, not democracy. I don't like this reality any more than you do, but unlike you I'm not going to bend the truth to suit me. The benefit of democracy isn't (just) progress - it is freedom. Implying otherwise is disingenuous and ultimately detrimental to your cause, since when applied to something like modern day China, a misguided Chinese person can then turn around and say "but we don't need democracy for progress - we're doing fine with authoritarianism". Reference: that's actually what happens when any one group has absolute power, be it religious or otherwise. that's where the whole concept of individual rights is derived, as a means to protect people from such groups (particularly the state). taks

It's also funny because it costs me $4 USD which is $4.5 AUD, whereas 4 Euros is $6.5 AUD. I'm glad there's no regional currency version of Steam for Australia. This sale has been amazing. Half-price discounts from Steam sales, and half-price 'discount' again due to the AUD being near parity. So much <3

I think it's potentially what the original Baldur's Gate was - a prequel and a prototype to a brilliant game. A good game in its own right, but hardly flawless. Based on what I've seen of ME2, it will be relegated to the same role BG1 had, having played it makes you appreciate the sequel more and fondly remembered, never booted. It cost me a lot more than 4 euros, and I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of it over the last 6+ months. It's funny because BG1 was better than BG2.

you played every game that came out in 2009? good job! Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I read that. It's like something Morgoth or Volourn would post.

An early predator takes about 10 to 15 colour to kill. Don't hold the mouse button down longer than that on predators. Later, avoid predators if you can - it's a waste of colour to kill them. If you're doing the donor glyph wrong, that's pretty bad, because the trees produce significantly less colour. How are you drawing it? As a fish? Don't. Some tips: draw it large, most of the screen. Start at the top right corner, draw down to near the bottom, go up in a loop, then come back down so the final tail ends BELOW the loop. This should help. I get it right every time. Here's a youtube video that might help - it shows some different variations that work. Basically makes sure the tails of the loop extend above and below the loop itself. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/show...d.php?t=1087320 Also, make sure you only fill a tree up to maximum, or it's a bit of a waste of a tree. For the ones in the Garden that is 40 colour, for the small ones in Fireflies that is 15 colour. The small ones produce more colour faster, so they should be used when you have less than 40 of a colour so you can quickly reach 40 (e.g. Silver, Amber). You need to kill 5 predators in total, BTW. Check each chamber. Remember you can save and reload on the map screen. Also remember you can pause the game on the map screen by holding down the CTRL key. This might help you prevent time wasting.

The legal drinking age in Australia is 18. The real drinking age is about 16. When cops find drunk kids, they take them home to their parents. I think there are some loopholes in the law about children being allowed to drink if in the company of a responsible adult. I'm pretty glad it's 18 here, tbh. Alcohol does bad things to developing brains (but it should be noted it's all but harmless to adult brains, unless consumed in heavy doses daily) so there's even some rational justification for the drinking age being 21, much as I would loathe that. I wish the police ignored pot here, but they'll nick your stuff and tell you to bugger off instead. Or worse, fine you.

I would suggest that everybody buy Starscape and Defence Grid. Now. Right now. Defence Grid is possibly one of the best tower defence games you'll ever play, with some nice graphics, voice acting and story (yes, story) to boot. Starscape is a fun 2d shoot 'em up (not that I've played many) with a nice resource management twist and quite a decent plot. Unfortunately no voice acting, but the soundtrack is pretty good. It's 20 mb, which is amazing but I guess most of the game is 2d except for the special effects. If you're someone like me who goes by Metacritic ratings when buying from Steam, always make sure you click 'Read Critic Reviews' below the rating so it takes you to the Metacritic page where it lists the USER REVIEWS as well as the professional ones. Sometimes you see a gross difference in the scores, as is the case for both these games.

Why a square grid? What happened to hexagons? ****ing wankers.

All I had was 3 beers. Well, it's 5:30 AM, I haven't slept, and the sun is back up. Granted, I've only been awake for 12 hours.