Humodour

It's only one spokesman from AT&T, not the entire company. Nevertheless, growth of 50% to 60% per year is enormous. Absolutely enormous, especially considering it's not a sudden spike - it's from a long history of high exponential growth and thus is a fairly stable value. It will change the way our world works (in the span of a few years) if it continues at that rate, and evidence seems to indicate it will. Where did you read that the internet traffic growth rate is falling? For example, the world population growth rate (pop isn't what we're talking about above of course) is falling, but the world's population will still growth by 50% by 2050. Tell me that won't cause problems. TBH, it seems to me that internet traffic growth rate is in a temporary slump. As the years go by it can only increase. India only has 7% penetration and China only 17% (compared to generally 50% to 80% of Western countries). These two nations make up a little under half the world population. With their industrial and economic growth, the internet will soon see mass Asian penetration, causing yet more growth spikes.

China took a questionable route indeed. Considering their past actions towards India (and current ones - check out those recently installed missile batteries pointing directly at India), asking them to defend the torch for China was rather condescending. Still, they did so without spite, so well done to India (I guess). Don't think India is unconcerned about the Tibet issue, either. Ignoring the Tibetan residents of India, Tibet was meant to be an area of neutrality between China and India; a buffer zone. The troop build-up in Tibet is anything but, and it's not the first time China has used it to invade India.

Some guy at AT&T predicts that by 2010, just 20 typical households will produce the bandwidth of the entire internet today. Thus if the internet of today is the internet of 2010 (it won't be, as they'll upgrade), it would not function. The point is that rapid change and infrastructure reshaping are vital in the coming years. Why? Entertainment media are rapidly moving to the internet (whether RIAA likes it or not). This covers things like Youtube but also torrenting & P2P, and commercial experiments such as iTunes store (which to be honest is the future for music and TV). Exponential growth for the Internet, yay! Still, I think this is important. It means that every thing else also gets access to this extra video bandwidth. Computers and anything with a microchip will become more wired than ever. It will be interesting. It's like Moore's law applied to the web. Like Moore's law, there will be a brick-wall... but that won't be any time soon. Whilst I question the validity of the numbers involved, there is unmistakably an exponential increase in web bandwidth use. http://www.news.com/2100-1034_3-6237715.html

I admit I haven't played Mass Effect or Jade Empire. I look forward to them though. And NWN1 OC might have sucked but I thoroughly enjoyed SoU and HotU, especially SoU.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it". Does this not apply to reloading? I bet the vast majority of games you love had reloading. What's so inherently wrong with it? I liked in Planescape and Fallout where some actions were deliberate game stoppers and you had to reload. This also introduced an element of meaning and importance to your decisions. *shrug*. It all comes down to whether or not your think reloading is cheating. I certainly don't.

Agreed.

Really? I found episode 2 dull and boring. At one point I was contemplating fast-forwading the episode as I almost fell asleep, no joke.

Actually, the guy seemed fairly in awe of Bioware's marketing ability, to me. "Blaming" Bioware didn't seem to be his agenda so much as questioning the validity of the god-like status often afforded them. He points out numerous times the fact that Bioware does produce good games.

Tory is a ****ing psycho. And strong. And more in touch with her inner cylon than the others. Scary. And poor cylon sixes. All they wanted to do was stand up for cylon rights.

Awesome? That just pisses me off, tbh, especially in a world with lots of quests and options. What do others think?

You throw games away? Ones you loved? Okaaaaay.

Yet critics/reviewers gave the NWN1 OC scores like 95%, 9/10, etc.

http://physorg.com/news127758364.html They're aiming for 6 month stays similar to the International Space Station. I still can't believe they actually built and manned the ISS, now moon bases? This is awesome. Recent developments in ion drive technology are cool, too. The Dawn, for example, fires only one ion at a time, and the thrust that gives is equal to a piece of paper falling on your hand. But it fires ion after ion, never stopping. Normal rocket engines do one big burst and that's it. They're fast, but inefficient. The Dawn can, over time, reach speeds massively higher, with a fraction of the fuel and weight. They're likely to be the future of any inter-stellar travel attempts. They also recently showed that plants can live in the moon's 'soil', if some bacteria are also introduced. Id est: you don't need to bring soil from earth.

Inconsistent how? Personally I liked every game they produced more than I liked every game Bioware produced, except BG1. It's true that Bioware's games are lighter, more like AAA games, but that in itself doesn't make them good, it just makes them sell more. And your last sentence makes little sense.

For the record, I bought BG1, BG2, KOTOR1, NWN1 and all expansions to these games. I really enjoyed BG1 and KOTOR1, as well as the NWN1 expansions (but not really NWN1). They were good, replayable games, but nothing spectacular (except maybe BG1 since it was kind of 'the first'). But I agree entirely with the article I posted. I urge people to read the full article, as it isn't a simple Bioware bash - it does also give credit to Bioware for consistently pumping out good games. It's more about raising awareness of the fact that Bioware produces good games, not great games, often stealing the limelight from the real gems of gaming.

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/38343

What do you mean? That it has been so slow lately, that it keeps timing out, both when trying to access the site, and when finally succeeding, then when trying to upload a 7kb gif file Odd. Maybe it is limiting anonymous users? Register an account - it's free and as pain-free as being an anonymous users. Also, nice emoticons. I'll vote for a few of them.

Much of the time the derails still produce lots of valid content, as this one is. It's a fairly natural evolution of human conversation.

Thanks muchly, Tigranes!

You're right really. Seeing how all the Chinese nationals react to criticism of China reminds me of somebody out of 1984. It scares me.

I was not talking about websites (I haven't actually read any of the ones you mention, yet). I was talking about people on this forum and another forum I frequent. Although it's interesting you mention Western media and websites are "uninformed" - the person I quoted earlier, the one claiming there are no human rights abuses in China, also claimed that Western media is all hype. I wonder how such a claim has validity considering China has the worst freedom of press rating in the world, whilst simultaneously trying to restrict and prevent Western press and similar access to the country and any information regarding human rights abuses. I have a choice: China and Chinese nationalist press which states there's nothing to see here, China is fine, move along... or I can check humanitarian organisations, and read news sources from various places such as Al Jazeera, Russia, Scandinavia, and then the usual suspects like America and Britain, which often wildly contradict the Chinese news sources. Hummmm.

Yeah Dungeon Siege 2 was good. Games on my permanent replay list: Deus Ex 1 Fallout 1 & 2 (usually I play 1 and then I start 2, but they are slightly different atmospheres so depends on mood) BG 1 IWD 1 & 2 (more 1) PS:T Half-Life 1 I don't play them as often any more as they no longer hold any secrets - I've played them too many times to count. Games that I don't replay anymore because of lack of multiplayer opponents/allies: Age of Empires (2 mainly) Diablo 2 Jazz Jackrabbit 2

As long as China doesn't suddenly move for Taiwan I doubt the **** will hit the fan any time soon.

If toilet requirements added something to the gameplay I wouldn't be opposed to implementing them. I'm pretty sure you meant to say, "If realism adds something to the gameplay I wouldn't be opposed to implementing it." Because toilets do not add something to gameplay!