Gorgon

I didn't buy the premise of the blue hand at all. An s&m club where people pass the time by playing Russian roulette ?, is that really what people would be thinking if they knew they were going to die. It doesn't seem to fit with how people diagnosed with a terminal condition spend their day. It seems to me people in that situation would be looking for purpose, salvation, rather than an orgy. Also there are some excellent possibilities for philosophical comment, the surface of which have barely been scratched.

same for me... i purchased all expansion packs for all games that i own and have released it... the difference between DLC and Exp pack is in most cases very big... you usualy get more fun for same money from exp packs for you it might be effective marketing, for me it is dealbreaking issue... there is reason why i never watch TV stations, which do have commercials in middle of movies... they do break the immersion for me as much as stuff for real money NPCs in computer games... But yes it is effective marketing in a way... it effectively saved me 60 EUR Trickery is effective marketing, otherwise they wouldn't bother. Now in the case of the DLC It's all about appearance, I'm not suggesting they are deliberately scamming. For me the nuisance is the salesperson in the camp. Making an adon with considerable impact on the skill tree and doing it concurrently with the host game, intending to launch them at the same time. To me it's also ever so slightly dishonest. If people insist that people who try to sell them stuff appear honest, and I am one of those people, an overt strategy like the one in the DLC will run into problems. I actually pay attention to business practices that I dislike and make it a point not to buy from such vendors. Say if there has been news coverage about an electronics chain which attempts to dissuade people from making claims on their warranties or price an enferior product line identically to the high end one figuring people would be too stupid to notice. Recently there was a case where a supermarket chain re packaged old meat and sold it as new. After the story broke they started loosing business at an almost exponential rate. After which they started running apology ads in all the major newspapers. They are certainly acutely aware of the importance of perception and having one's name unstained.

That is part of being in college. Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers are supposed to stay away from voicing personal opinions and challenging students over political and social issues, but once you hit college that goes out the window. What class is it anyways? Today I built a playhouse with my father-in-law. It is two stories and has a climbing wall and a slide, as well as a swing set. It took quite a bit of time, but it looks good. We got it for free from a neighbor, just had to take it apart, move it, and then reassemble it Just write that you are current not doing anything to combat racism, and that you don't feel you have to apologies for not being a bigot.

They need something to do other than flying around and going through the od gate.

As an aside I believe wholly that nuclear power will be a major part of dealing with energy crisis and global warming. Unfortunately that inevitably leads to proliferation and a situation eminently more dangerous than a handful of western powers locked in a cold war.

Every time the 'air raid' siren, signifying disaster conditions, had sounded all the kids at my kindergarten would run and ask if it was either the bomb or Barsebeck ,the smoke stacks of which were visible from the harbor, gone critical. I kid you not. I'm sure a lot of that came from watching our parents' paranoia.

Acting as a block in trade is one thing, foreign policy another. I don't like the notion, but just to play the devil's advocate, imagine if a capable EU deterrent had existed when people started going crazy in Yugoslavia.

Cool beans. I think the U3 engine is sufficiently advanced to be an option for a long time.

But Europe is not an area where the lack of recognition of nation and government leads to corruption and crime, and the indifference to Europe as a nation is a good thing as far as it makes aggressive nationalism unlikely.

How people try to sell me things often influences my willingness to buy, I have never bought anything off a phone salesman either. A commercial I dislike spawns the same instant thumbs down reaction. I have already stated that I don't dispute the company's right to do whatever they want with their product. What I don't understand is why my opinion is automatically invalid because it's not one of indifference.

I don't dispute their right to sell their creation any way they like, I just think smells bit too much like a scam. I don't like the idea of an in game character hitting me up for my credit card number so I can get on with his quest. It's cheap.

I think the salesperson in the camp... It's a bit too much. It leaves the vanilla people feeling cheated. Like I did when I couldn't wait for the special edition of Total War with the extra units. It's the same reason the windows for tall people, windows for blue people, windows for skinny people sales strategy annoys me on a fundamental level. They aren't creating anything new, they are just chopping up what they have and selling it in portions.

Why didn't I see this earlier. The reason the NWN# OC always sucks is because people will feel cheated and buy the adons.

An enormous bureaucracy of experts in various fields are constantly busy writing reports and recommendations that only the initiated will ever read. The admission criteria in stages with various deadlines for, I think it was Poland, weighted in at 15 kilogram in paper, more for the hardcover versions.

A rootkit allows root access to the system, making it impossible to detect unless you are looking for it. It allows whoever installed it to do anything and everything imaginable with the computer. It's an advanced systems administrator tool turned trojan. Sometimes files can be marked as read only or 'in use' even though they aren't. This is part of the file protection system, which is a good thing, unless it's 'out of whack' for some reason. The cure is to reboot in safe mode and disable file protection. Most likely the problem sorted itself out after a few reboots, as there were no longer any active processes associated with those files.

The big advantage is the common market, the joined foreign policy initiative is doomed to failure, too many conflicting interests. We certainly don't want a king of the EU capable of deploying troops by him/her-self, and it will never be a power block to rival the US.

I dunno about Turkey. I think there must be a limit after which you can't really call it a 'European' union, and on the other hand it's a good thing if it can promote human rights. They need to can the death penalty first and admit to their own problems in dealing with their minorities, so they can start doing it differently. I know this sounds a bit hypocritical with the extreme right on the upturn Europe, but still...

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.