Humodour

Valve just released Half-Life 1 sales figures. Excluding Steam sales, Valve has sold an average of 1 million copies per year for the past 10 years. Holy ****. Numbers for HL2, L4D and such are similarly astonishing. Edit: Also, as many already know, Valve as a company, and specifically Valve's boss, Gabe Newell, hates most DRM (especially things like SecuROM), and actively discourages devs and publishers from using it with Steam. Score one for the good guys.

True, but WINE support is a great first step, doesn't require any significant code changes, and is fairly platform independent (among Linux distros, although a proprietary Mac version of WINE exists). But yeah, blocking out the current 10% of the market that doesn't use Windows will be a rather daft business decision in years to come, I imagine. Right now, Mac's market-share is 9% and consistently rising (Gartner predicts that to double by 2011), and they now use x86 (increasing code portability), whilst Windows' marketshare has fallen below 90% and continues to decrease. Mac sales figures up to 2007: It's even more poignant since the US states that I'm guessing buy the most computer games have the largest number of Mac users: In Australia, Apple's domestic (non-business) market share is about 15% to 20%. Gonna be a leader or a follower, Obsidz?

You don't need the publisher's permission to get it working on WINE.

Hey guys, I've a couple of grammar questions: Aristes said: "The earlier example of 'whom' underscores that point, as it is a... relative pronoun (I think. As I warned earlier, I've forgotten a lot of the terms.)." Is his use of the extra full stop at the end correct? It seems to be correct from a perspective of consistency (and I do it, too), but it also looks odd having two full stops in a row. Also, I'm going to refer to something: This is a sentence. Is my capitalisation of 'this' correct or should it be lower case (I usually opt for lower case)? I mean, when you use a semicolon, you don't start the new 'sentence' with capitalisation, right, so why do it with a colon?

Of course it sounds bad if you put it like that. Yeah because there are so many established facts in science. And I'm saying that as a scientist. There are, yes. Especially if you define facts axiomatically.

I think you misunderstood. I was simply conceding that American quotation punctuation is a 'strict' rule in America to point out an inconsistency in Enoch's application of standards (because I was being a senseless pedant), not that it's correct or logical (I don't think it is). Certainly though, I think Enoch's claim that these are "American forums" was silly, since probably not even half the members are American, and the games are designed for the international community. As such, I will now advocate British quotation punctuation (as established by The Oxford Guide to Style).

Actually, Brdavs, it has a fair bit to do with Islam since many of the countries in question follow some interpretation of Sharia law which is largely responsible for not just encouraging the human rights abuses we so despise, but preventing reform towards stopping them. That's not true of Christianity or Judaism. (Maybe it was in the past? Certainly not in the present though - you know, the era we currently live in.) And no claims that Islam is a religion of peace and the countries in question have distorted it, please - their holy texts are every bit as barbaric as the Bible and Torah, with the unfortunate distinction that the average Muslim still follow them from a fundamentalist perspective. I will rigorously defend a place like Turkey - somewhere which the level of religious fundamentalism is noticeable but relatively low, and separation of church and state is an enshrined foundation of the country similar to, say, America. A great example of why Islam is no different to any other religion. Unfortunately, unlike America, Turkey is more the exception to the rule for its respective religion. This is a result of cultural processes more than anything, but nethertheless Islam still lies at the heart of the problem - Middle Eastern culture has actually developed further towards religious fundamentalism in recent history, but the resulting strict interpretation of Islam vigourously encourages such fundamentalism. Quite a catch-22. But this cultural aspect of Islam is also the reason South-East Asia, separated by geography, does not suffer the fundamentalism problem to anywhere near the same extent. I fully expect your next response to claim that human rights are a relative Western institution and it's none of our business to expect other countries to uphold them. EDit: Although I'm personally not a fan of vilifying Islam or using it as a scapegoat. My point is that in order to understand the problems in the Middle East (as a precursor to helping solve them), it's important to know why they exist. Shoving it under the carpet like the Brits and Brdavs do as "THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ISLAM! IT'S ALL DUE TO WESTERN IMPERIALISM." does nobody any good.

Is an inability to spell 'lighten' properly also "proper American spelling"? False. There are different styles, and from memory putting the full stop inside the quotation is the American style. Sawyer used the British style. More power to him! If we're going to be pedantic, you should have used the word 'quotation', since in this context 'to quote' is a verb, not a noun. Forgive me for citing the correct form in American writing when addressing an American writer on an American website. Any copy editor for a US publication would have moved the period inside of the quotation; it's not a choice that every writer gets to make for him/herself. (Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., sec. 6.8 ) So you're arguing for strict adherence to linguistic rules? So you're arguing for lax adherence to linguistic rules?

Um, what? "The other parties" (representing about 60% of Canadians) were planning to vote no confidence, and the most likely outcome would have been the GG calling a new election where those "other parties" formed a Coalition and won or lost by their combined vote. The only complicating factor is that you guys just had an election, so she may simply go by the results of that instead. Now Harper has over a month to whisper lies in peoples' ears and try to vilify a quarter of Canadians (Quebec) even more to save his job. That won't help him much, though, because even if they call off the no confidence vote, he still faces a hostile majority for the rest of his term. One which could call another no confidence vote at any time. Either way it's good for the Canadian people. An election gets called? The matter is settled with finality. The confidence vote is cancelled? Harper has to actually listen to other parties. The Coalition is given government? The conglomerate backed by 60% of Canada at the last election governs, with Dion resigning in mid-2009 because he acknowledges he does not have popular support.

Wow, imagine a Beowolf cluster of those!

Here, let me help: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RFzyYYZsxGc (I promise it's not Las Ketchup's Aserej

Dion was pledged to resign in the middle of next year anyway (or be ejected by his party), so that point is moot. If Canadians want another election, then good. Call one. Don't let Harper get in the way of democracy. The fact is, though, the Coalition can call a no confidence vote to call an election right now because they have enough seats to do so - given to them at the last election by the Canadian people. Tell me, Volourn, is it democratic for the GG to suspend parliament for over a month because the PM asked her to?

Amen, Josh. 'Dialogue' it is! What I am less certain about is my use of 'programme'. And people, it's not ketchup, it's tomato sauce. Pffft. False. There are different styles, and from memory putting the full stop inside the quotation is the American style. Sawyer used the British style. More power to him! If we're going to be pedantic, you should have used the word 'quotation', since in this context 'to quote' is a verb, not a noun.

Whoops, I missed this! What you want is called 'AJAX' (plenty of info for it on Google). And your problem sounds perfectly doable. I'm assuming you already know PHP and SQL right? Let me know if you need help. P.S. **** me, it's half past midnight and the temperature is 20 degrees Celsius outside!.

But what about the sanctity of marriage? Think of the children! Are you a paedophile?

The Alevi would disagree.

Thanks for stating the obvious. You're an absolute gem. Anyway, *bump* to increase visibility to devs.

My original intention was actually to point out that Christian churches in general do this, and singling out the Catholic church seems spiteful. But then I forgot why I was posting.

Yeah, I mean, they're just a cardinal and archbishop, which are just the second- and third-highest offices in the main Catholic Church. Okay, I re-read it. Did I miss the part where the Church decided that safe sex was A-OK? So? If the Catholic Church told all its members to kill themselves, would that be OK because most of them won't? a) Cardinals and Archbishops are actually fairly common. To try and pin the comments of one Cardinal and one Archbishop on all Cardinals and all Archbishops, or the Catholic Church in general, is disingenuous. b) You missed the part where a lot of Catholics in Africa teach contraception methods. c) I imagine it would be as dreadful as if any other church told its members to kill themselves?

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo: “In the case of the AIDS virus, which is around 450 times smaller than the sperm cell, the condom’s latex material obviously gives much less security... to talk of condoms as ‘safe sex’ is a form of Russian roulette.” (Source) Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio: "Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," (Source) And, of course, it's official catholic church policy that contraception is immoral (Source) Two Catholic priests out of how many Christian preachers in Africa? If you're trying to provide some evidence of widespread and systemic misinformation about contraception on the part of the Catholic church, you failed. I also advise you to fully read the article you linked to. This one: http://www.catholic.org/international/inte...ry.php?id=19561 Edit: The Vatican could do a hell of a lot more to promote safe sex and thus radically reduce HIV rates in some parts of Africa, where Catholicism is prevalent over Protestantism or Islam, but to condemn an entire religion because of this is silly. In the first place, something like 90% of Western Catholics use condoms.

Here's some info about Amnesty International and the Catholic Church - as for the other issue I'll look into it and see if I can find some sources for you. A.I. vs. C.C. Links: http://www.amnesty.org.au/svaw/comments/2420/ http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07073102.html http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/ite..._international/ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/po...hts-461358.html Those links are about abortion, not contraception. Was your original claim meant to say abortion instead of contraception? And I am primarily interested in your other claims, since I don't care which charity people donate to; there's a massive degree of choice in that arena.

Like spreading misinformation about condoms and AIDs/HIV in Africa and asking Catholics to not give to institutions such as Amnesty International because they, the NGOs, support the use of contraceptives? Sorry, but until they reign in their missionaries and officials I'm not going to be singing praise about their "efforts." Care to provide some unbiased sources?

To be honest I think you've got more hope of the passive secularisation of Islamic countries over time than you do a reformation. Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkey would be good examples of various stages of such a force. I disagree with your assertion that religion is a part of human nature, but fundamentally you're right in that humanity needs something that builds a sense of community. I just disagree that such a thing needs to be religion (although it certainly can be).

I should probably add that, as someone who studies and teaches History and world religion every day, I find most religions to be beautiful. I am fascinated by them all. That's why I enjoy my job. I'm not committed to any specific religion myself though. I find Islam to be often vindicative and vengeful if we go purely by their holy book and hadiths. Which isn't unique to them (see Judaism and Christianity), but I get the feeling they take such scriptures more to heart (e.g. the widespread adoption of Shari'a in many Muslims countries). I'm a fan of Alevism, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alevi (Although lol @ Morgoth's fear of Turks. They'd have to be just about the most progressive and secular bunch of Muslims you're ever going to find.)

Same. Holy ****. Try to log in and see if it says you are not authorised. That means it's pending confirmation. You can PM people in the meantime. Missy is slow.