Humodour

Did you read my posts? I covered that point in more than one of them.

Actually I've found that after the first or second book this series goes downhill into cliche faster than Michael Bay's Explosions. The main character is actually the only guy in the world to have both types of magic, and he always has some fight of the month against an indescribably nasty person, and randomly pulls new powers out of his hat to save his friends and family from said nasty people. And did I mention he's also the superpowered seeker of truth that'll is given OTHER special powers and is viewed by the fates as friggin sweet? The first book is pretty interesting because most of this stuff doesn't happen (well except for the bad guy bit) and a lot is covered up (there's also a funny bit having to do with a wizard, a lynch mob, and the definition of the term witch). Yep, after the first book (which was interesting enough to warrant reading the second and third in the hopes of similar quality) it goes to **** rapidly. Blech.

Yes, but how is this unconstitutional? Illegal isn't the same as unconstitutional. Further, this isn't a criminal trial, and the requirements for proving intent are not necessarily so strict, I think Enoch pointed this out already. Why are you so vehemently convinced that the ruling violates the US Constitution? Again, my specific knowledge of the US Constitution is null, so any links you can produce that show how the verdict contravenes part(s) of the Constitution would pretty much settle the matter. Yes, you unaware of the US Constitution; excessive punitive damage awards are considered to violate the Due Process clause of the US Constitution. http://current.com/items/90233505_1-9-mill...l-questions.htm Your second point that people who are technically illiterate are 'retards' is not worth replying to.

At least two people have already invented small jetpacks (small enough to strap on, though still bulky) and between countries with them, so I think we're talking more thna a few minutes. One Swiss guy and one Japanese guy I think.

I don't know who or what Stardock is. Somebody mentioned online activation for patches, though? Well that's no better than any other form of online activation, is it? I'd certainly call that intrusive. But I also think Steam is intrusive (for exactly the same reason). I really don't like the concept of online activation. You wouldn't accept it for a music CD or a movie DVD, now would you?

Why don't you start off with a cheap second-hand car and bash around in it learning to drive? You're not even 15 yet. You've got plenty of time to waste money on a sleek expensive car so you can show off to your friends. Then perhaps a Peugeot RC, Subaru Impreza, or Bentley Mansory for a first car? Why don't you spend your money on something that's actually worth it? If you're buying your first car (especially at 14) based on a brand name or aesthetic appeal then you're probably doing it wrong. I know this sounds condescending, but I'm not that much older than you at 21, and anyway, at 14 I felt exactly the same way about cars as I do now. Well, except that now I actually wouldn't mind owning a snazzy car to show off to ladies. But the point remains it's still primarily to get you from point A to point B and depreciates in worth at an amazingly horrid pace (assuming you manage not to dent it in some tussle with a semi). Conclusion: take your parents's money, pretend you're buying an exorbitantly expensive first car, snag a well-cared for 2nd-hand energy efficient urban vehicle instead, and invest the cash difference in shares before the economy recovers.

Why do I have a feeling that vehicle would flip over incredibly easily? Because it doesn't have training wheels?

Thanks for the ideas so far guys. I'll read this thread more fully after my last exam, but I welcome more suggestions! Yes you can. I just get everyone to tell me their favourite new and old sci-fi/fantasy books and obviously I will ignore the ones I've already read. After that I should have a good picture of what some decent news reads are. For example, I haven't read any of those, so I'll now read some reviews about them to see if I want to read them. Fine, some details. My favourite books have been (some I haven't read in years): Animorphs (lololol) Harry Potter The Red Dwarf Novels Colony (by one of the Red Dwarf guys - Rob Grant) The Truth (Pratchet) Thief of Time (Pratchet) The Tripods Series 1984 Fahrenheit 451 The Night's Dawn trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton The Commonwealth Saga - Peter F. Hamilton The Void Trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton The Hobbit (I read LotR two or three times but I'm not sure I'd call it a favourite) I tried some Aasimov (Caves of Steel) but it was amazingly boring. I could appreciate it for the elements that later sci-fi built upon, but the 1930's culture (sexism, small-mindedness, disrepect for freedom, etc) and lack of futuristic insight (1000 years later and they hadn't even invented proper computers) essentially killed it for me. Or maybe it was his style of writing - that was quite boring as well. Edit: It's probably not entirely inconsequential that over 50% of that list is dystopian/post-apocalyptic. I do very much like my novels to end on a happy ending, though (1984 being an outlier, but I enjoyed it more for the literary/philosophic appeal than because it was entertaining).

Oh, come now. We're grownups here. A little legalese isn't going to kill anyone. So please, explain how exactly the verdict violates the US Constitution. I'm by no means an expert, so don't assume I know anything. Precedents would help, too. Sure. The jury accused her of 'wilful' violation. Wilful in this sense means essentially 'with malicious intent to cause damage to the copyright holders' and is distinct from what she obviously did: caused a loss of a sale, which caps out at damages of, from memory, $30,000 per infringement (as opposed to the cap of $150,000 for wilful violation). Moreover, the album itself was the sale lost, not each individual song, so the calculation of per song is also dubious. That's a really poor defense and would hardly stand in court. "Why, Your Honor, how could I possibly had known that file-sharing software was in fact designed to share files?" Anyone trying to pass that off as an excuse should be fined for a deliberate insult to intelligence. That's incorrect. Most people see downloads on the internet as a one-way thing, which they largely are. I can tell you as somebody who sets up internet and ethernet connections for people as a part-time job that almost every single one of them is clueless that file sharing programmes go both ways. They think it's file sharing in the classic sense: everyone downloads files from a central repository kind enough to 'share' them. Some of the more savvy college kids are actually aware it goes both ways. I'm sorry that you think that's 'unintelligent' behaviour, but the fact is it's far more likely to be simple technical ingorance. Those fines are unconstitutional in America. I won't get into the legalities of it, but they're unlikely to be upheld when she appeals. We're talking fines larger than the combined sales of the album she shared, even though probably only a handful of people downloaded it off her - clearly that's not valid 'compensation'. And it assumes she intended to share, which is unknown. Many people don't realise they're sharing when they use torrents and other p2p technology. They're not fines. This was a private suit for damages, not a prosecution. The range of permissible damages is defined in the Copyright Act, and the determination within that range is left to the jury. They are deliberately set higher than their likely cost to the plaintiff, to provide extra discouragement and make sure that nobody ever can profit by violating the Act while counting the consequent suit as a cost of doing business. (This is much the same way that Antitrust awards are always tripled.) Yes, tripled - multiplied by 3, not multiplied by 80,000. The 'discouragement' defence is perfectly reasonable for a typical copyright case, it's just a pity (for you, and the RIAA) that it's not a viable defence here. And you're wrong, AFAIK - she appealed the initial ruling, not the amount of the initial ruling, no?

Hydrogen is only viable somewhere like Iceland where you have so spare much geothermal and hydro electricity that the word 'inefficient' is pointless (which is also why the smelt so much aluminium there, produce so much fertiliser, and heat their footpaths in the dead of winter). In places where you don't have abundant access to renewables, I don't think it's such a good idea, as Magister points out (hydrogen costs a ****-load of electricity to make, and is very hard to store). Here's a good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy

Those fines are unconstitutional in America. I won't get into the legalities of it, but they're unlikely to be upheld when she appeals. We're talking fines larger than the combined sales of the album she shared, even though probably only a handful of people downloaded it off her - clearly that's not valid 'compensation'. And it assumes she intended to share, which is unknown. Many people don't realise they're sharing when they use torrents and other p2p technology.

I've already read all his books. One of my favourite authors. I'ma ctually after stuff similar to his works (space opera, strong/unique/compelling characters and storylines)...

What? I thought your were an oldie?

Do a search on all your posts, take the number of results returned, and subtract your post count from it to get your WoT post count.

Gimmie some new reads, guys.

Those are lame reasons. AFAIK the dialogue can be text based or voice-over based, and if you mean the character animations - what's so 'unique and difficult to replicate' about 'em?

One need only take a look at the reaction to LFD2 to see that. Still, that's got nothing to do with the perfectly reasonable desire for non-intrusive DRM.

Actually, I don't think it's North Korea after all: NK isn't rich enough to own 130 billion dollars, something that didn't occur to me when I wrote that. It could well be an attempt to destabilise the dollar through counterfieting after all (China wouldn't be happy since they'd lose their savings, so it's certainly not them). I mean, why would any country entrust their fortune with just 2 guys?

Why don't you start off with a cheap second-hand car and bash around in it learning to drive? You're not even 15 yet. You've got plenty of time to waste money on a sleek expensive car so you can show off to your friends.

I'll tell you what I WOULD buy a CE for: Portal.

Eh, I'll buy a collector's edition. I probably don't care about the trinkets, but it's a nice way of supporting Obsid without buying the game twice.

It is inconvenient. That's probably one of the reasons the EU is mandating the ability to select and install a browser without depending on the OEM to provide one to start with. Though I think even Microsoft's bastard solution has a line hidden in it to the effect of "users can elect to install Internet Explorer" - i.e. it's not installed by default, but it'll be lying around your Windows directory somewhere if you chose to install it.

Or it's because it's so cheap. It only costs 20 bucks/Euros. Therefor, Nintendo wins by default. Something I don't thing Microsoft comprehends. But that lessens Nintendo somewhat. Nintendo sells because they're good at what they do: they're cheap, but they're also high-quality, fun, simple, reliable and non-confrontational. Man I want my Wii. Played my sister yesterday at super smash bros (she got one for her bday) and it was really fun once I got the hang of the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo. I think she got a bit bored when I kept killing her though.

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?) Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem. Hmm. I don't have IWD1 installed, sorry. But I think they'd be easy to find because I recall they had intuitive filenames. What's the TeamBG programme that unpacks the chitin.key file and lets you extract the spell/avatar/weapon/etc bif/bam files (animation files)? Let me check... OK, it's called WinBIFF, download it here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php Edit: download Bamworkshop on the same page to view the animations to confirm they are what you want. Edit 2: I just checked and I do have IWD1 installed. I can see the bams for Arundel and bats and stuff but character avatars aren't immediately obvious... Edit 3: OK, found them. They're under data\CHRAnim.bif in the chitin.key file. I guess you'd just extract that entire part of the chitin.key file to your override directory once you've installed HoW? No guarentees. There could be hard-coded animation frame count differences between IWD1 and HoW. Edit 3: Supposing you get bored and want to make your own spells or items, the IEEP tool on that page is a gem for that. DaleKeeper can detect any items/spell you make and add to the Override directory, too, if you can't be bothered using the console in game (I couldn't!). Thanks Krez! I'll give it a try after uninstalling IWD+HOW+TotL and report back. Edit 1: Ok, I extracted ALL the files from CHRAnim.bif into the override directory. I didn't really want to fuss with searching for each individual one because there are so damn many. Here goes nothing. Edit 2: Well, that didn't work. I didn't get any error messages or anything, just that nothing was changed WTF. That's exactly what's NOT meant to happen. Try this: delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file using WinBiff (also delete those override files you extracted( and see if anything changes (hopefully it should crash because there's no animation files - if not, we've got the wrong suspect). Report back here with what your findings, soldier! What do you mean when you say "delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file"? Do you mean delete all of the .bams or just delete the CHRAnim.bif? Just CHRAnim.bif I think (so all the character avatars, hopefully). The whole idea is to (hopefully) break your IWD install so we know for sure that those are the correct files to edit. So do a backup, if you don't want to reinstall from scratch. I might reinstall IWD1 sometimes soon myself and play a solo or duo squad, as I haven't done that before. I recall it being frustrating at first when I last tried, but I imagine I'll become overpowered eventually from all the extra XP.