Gorgon

Did you manage to recover their files ?. Free antivirus programs like AVG are a gazillion times better than using something that can't upgrade anymore because the license ran out. There is no sure cure for root kits and the like other than reformatting and reinstalling. There are anti rootkit tools in most anti virus programs nowadays, but how can you be sure it's gone. Their main function is simply to tell you that you need to reinstall. Spybot is not a proper anti virus as far as I know. It focuses on the gray area, data mining programs don't usually destroy the host system, that would defeat it's own purpose. 90% of what I get back when running a scan are tracking cookies, which aren't a problem for system functionality. Looks like they need a lesson in the need for software firewall and antivirus programs, all of which are available free, so there's no excuse really.

Try harder, at what ?

Not because it's good, it's just the only game in town for sci fi fans.

Went to the doctor to sort out my disgusting foot wart problem. He used liquid nitrogen to deep freeze them, and gave me a script for some potent salve. Believe it or not it's going to take 3 MONTHS to clear up completely. Hopefully some time next year I won't feel quite so much like a leper. Aren't you glad I shared.

That's self congratulatory nonsense. I can say that because we are not in a one pub hick town. Anyway my first encounter with real violence (drunken brawl) taught me that 1. I'm no good at it, and 2. I'm not indestructible, even if the alcohol insists otherwise. I wonder what the lesson would have been if I had hurt the other guy to the cheers and adulation of the onlookers and my friends. Probably not a good one. There is nothing in all the vector constructs I had blown to bits prior to it that hinted at how emotional, ugly and just plain stupid it was in reality. My prior knowledge of violence, well I didn't have one. I knew well enough what it wasn't though, that John Rambo taking out 300 Russians with a bow and arrow had about as much to do with the real thing as computer games.

That goes for any kind of liability. Chinese electronics are cheap, but the warranty they come with might be honored and it might not. Certainly foreign companies have a hard time trying to get anything done though Chinese civil law.

It's pretty hard to feel empathy with a bunch of ones and zeroes. My reaction to the GTA example would be to be a little disgusted - at the writers.

Seeing as how we already know how the story goes, I wish they would get on with it and reveal their true nature.

Time for tiny personal rant. Drawing tablets with integrated graphical display are useful in all kind of various design work. Only problem is that there's only one company that manufacture 'em. Wacom from Japan. They basically own all patents for that type of technology. If you can get new 21" LCD display for $200, Wacom type of device will cost at least 10 times as much. Technology is very simple, as there only need to be some way to handle the pressure in order to be able to draw different type of lines. Wacom products like Cintiq are not even that durable and spare parts (or fixing it) cost small fortune. There's also tons of issues with drivers, jitter, scratches, heating, dead pixels ect ect. I'd say lack of competition in this area creates serious issues in all kinds of design and creative work. When amatours start to hack normal LCD displays and start to build their own DIY projects, you know there's a problem in somewhere. Don't too wide patents or strict licensing policy create automatical monopoly ? I've wanted one of those for ages, and I could never understand why it was so mind blowingly expensive.

I know you're joking, but I'm pretty sure I'm older than you are. *Coughing with laughter* I hope for your sake that you're not. It's a common affliction, not much I can do about it. Mushrooms are really good fried with potatoes, yummy. Why anyone would intentionally eat poisonous ones is beyond me. Living without hallucinating is like breathing with only one nostril. Which is to say, perfectly possible and only ever so slightly handicapping. People have used hallucinogens throughout history, to commune with the spirits, out of curiosity, to send them into a berserker rage on the battlefield (or so the story goes) Here are some thoroughly stoned animals your viewing pleasure.

They made a movie out of Queen of the damned, it's horrible. I read the first two books and they were quite good, not cheesy at all as the genre has come to be, although that is partly Rice's fault as well.

Examples Of Scams: A typical scam: users are offered in game currency in exchange for filling out an IQ survey. Four simple questions are asked. The answers are irrelevant. When the user gets to the last question they are told their results will be text messaged to them. They are asked to enter in their mobile phone number, and are texted a pin code to enter on the quiz. Once they

I'm guessing the straw dummies are a good approximation of what it feels like, what muscles are strained, when you stab someone with a bayonet affixed. Clicking a mouse is not a lot like shooting a rifle though. That new neuron connections should be created while you are shooting pixels on the screen, which could modify your behaviour. it all sounds pretty unlikely.

That's just a gripe with the questions and the method, the conclusion might be right after all for all I know.

Almost one in 10 of those questioned aged between 16 and 50 said they downloaded music illegally. However, eight out of 10 of that group also bought CDs, vinyl and as MP3s. Maybe it's important for file sharers to state that they also buy music to avoid stigma. 1000 polls is the bare minimum needed to call most things statistical, and then only if the entries had been selected to reflect the country's demographic.

So games are training, like lion cubs learning to hunt. Well we don't have any practical application for hunting skills anymore, but maybe a part of our primitive brain still needs the thrill of the hunt (FPS games) Would it be possible to deliberately craft a game with the intention of eroding empathy... I don't know, I think you would need more levels of control. Was Hitlerjugend a game ?. It was advertised to new recruits as something akin to the boyscouts. Then the kids were subjected to increasing levels of fanatical fascist Indoctrination. One did not leave, it simply wasn't done. It was quite spectacularly effective in eroding empathy according to former members.

I don't think anyone suggested that simulations would be poor at training tactics. They do nothing about the psychological element though, which is what we concern ourselves with here - does pretend violence erode the capacity for empathy, and of course it doesn't.

Yes they are violent, but it's pretend violence, there are no victims. I don't buy that it desensitizes children since they are perfectly capable of telling real from make believe, it's what they do all day long when they play. They learn to lie around age 5-6 which involves a reasonably complex calculation and mixture of the real and the imagined. The distinction between real and imagined is, in a word, unavoidable.

I'm not sure there is much medical proof of the matter, but I can think of several old stoners who just 'never came down' off their trip. I'm all for a little hallucination, but I don't think I would enjoy giving up that many of my faculties at once. It would just feel too scary. Consequently I never repeated my failed shrooms experiment.

I tried shrooms one time and nothing happened. Of course I did fry them and serve them with a stake, it might have fouled the active ingredients. They were hand picked by experienced hippies so they must have been the genuine article.

Can't we just assassinate the old maharajah and promote some ambitious fellow who is more understanding of our goals. It's worked reasonably well so far.

Blablahblah... because you can't delete a post.

Well jeez, just smoke a very small amount if you don't know what you've got. Anyway you are better off paying extra for premium and smoking less of it than using too much 'standard'

It helps with appetite, the munchies, and is given to patients to counteract for instance the effects of chemotherapy. There is even a synthesized cannabis pill for those who dislike smoking it.

That would be glassy eyes and shaky hands. lols.