Humodour

Um... Portal Beyond Good & Evil Psychonauts (maybe?) Diablo 3 (you know it's true)

Youre excited about Diablo III? Anyone who isn't is a fraud. Then I'm a fraud I think most people already knew this.

Age of Empires 1 or 2 (both including expansions).

Youre excited about Diablo III? Anyone who isn't is a fraud.

Considering Alpha Protocol's lack of any ****ing advertisement & marketing campaign you'd think a demo would be a superb idea. Bah.

TBH, that's where Australia wants to be in terms of supporting quality of life and happiness. Over 70% of GDP comes from the services sector. Less than 10% from commodities and agriculture. The rest mainly manufacturing. Then again, we could take a leaf out of Japan's book fully mechanise manufacturing with robots, leaving most people to the more intellectually rewarding/stimulating services jobs as they are currently. But the problem is places like Japan already have that market cornered. There's just not a lot to justify Australia breaking into the manufacturing industry generally (look at the mess of our car industry). Free market and all that rot. I suppose we could introduce tariffs and such?

Meh, you don't. I think you're Chinese yourself right? Either way, I find myself agreeing with the bulk of your post. Many Chinese apologists are rather less rational and frank. I don't want China to fall into poverty and chaos. I do not, however, like the direction we're heading with China having all but a monopoly on manufacturing many Western goods. Not with the mentality of the Chinese state (I wouldn't give a bugger if it was private industry, and if China's private industry was truly private). Though at least such manufacturing is tempered by a reliance on Western commodities. Regarding your comment on the size of the manufacturing industries in other developed countries - I do presume they are smaller, but that's in no small part due to China soaking up capital investment with places like Indonesia left picking over the scraps (which was only sensible until recently since Indonesia for example only fully started economic liberalisation about 10 years ago). There's certainly no labour difference. But my point isn't that we should've avoided Chinese products in the past - it's that we should start to avoid them now, now that coherent alternatives exist. This coincides with China trending towards a consumption based economy so in an ideal world it works out well for everyone.

I'm not excited about Alpha Protocol. The dialogue system sounds annoying and restrictive and the fact that you 'level up' in a first/third person shooter (rather than simply gain skill points as in Bloodlines, Deus Ex, or System shock 2) sounds ludicrous. Finally, the segmentation of genuine role playing vs combat based on dev descriptions is not encouraging, nor is the claim one of them (Sawyer?) made that most role-playing is done through conversation. The stealth system in the game also sounds severely gimped. But I'll buy and hopefully enjoy the game on some level. Maybe it'll surprise me and I'll like it as much as one of the aforementoned games, but I'm not holding my breath.

I think the best idea is to simply avoid Chinese products. China doesn't even have a complete or consistent legal system yet, ignoring the fact that one would be supporting a totalitarian communist regime. Bull****. I'll take my chances with democracies of equal capability like India or Indonesia, thanks.

Man, bouncers here are such ****s. I've been thrown down the stairs at least twice from memory. Probably many more times that I can't remember. Once I woke up with a shallow knife wound on my chest after a particularly big night. But that's neither here nor there.

Meanwhile some other boffins have chosen to use slime mould 'robots' for their swarm intelligence instead: http://www.physorg.com/news170865567.html

Some researchers have designed a way to cheaply mass-produced micro-robots with swarm intelligence: http://www.physorg.com/news170678733.html Pretty damn cool.

Yeah, it does seem like a game suited for a demo. I would adore a demo.

The Scots already forgave him by giving him life imprisonment (20 years?) instead of the death penalty. They do not owe him compassion. Edit: For the record, I despise the death penalty.

Huh? My thoughts exactly.

America does that already. That said the bastard should rot in gaol till he dies a miserable lonely death. That's more then he gave the hundreds of innocents he butchered.

**** yeah energy legs! Can I get it in diet? You know, the one without 4000 babies? Yes, I believe there is a version for women.

I just finished reading Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks and it was pointless, boring, and unmotivating. I am not inclined to read any more of his works.

You'll run as fast as KENYANS.

But its got ELECTROLYTES! I often drink powerade. Can I recommend an energy drink for you then?

I found poo in the sandbox.

We don't go to Ravenholm.

Yeah. In other words: it was realistic. I think some people are used to FPS aiming where high energy particle scientists can pick up rocket launchers gauss guns and immediately know how to fire them 100% accuracy at small, fast moving headcrabs. It's been awhile since I played Deus Ex but didn't weapon skill only affect aiming when you were actually aiming and not shooting from the hip? It's been a while since I played Deus Ex as well but I believe it actually reduced the size of the targetting reticle permanently when you increased the skill level, thereby giving you a better base to start from when moving, and taking a shorter time to hit maximum accuracy when still.

For reference, the GDP of Norway is $250 billion.

Why the **** is this case being administered by a military court? Though I guess that's not the most absurd aspect of this idiocy. Africa has some ****ed up states in it.