Mor

let me guess another modern take on the loner vigilante super hero, now with special effects arrows Although my first associations wasn't any better, ISIS the Egyptian goddess (Cleopatra the game anyone?)

What Concentration(Resolve) does? I believe that JS once said that all attributes will have combat value, so maybe some kind of spell failure chance. Edit: NM found JS comment on the first page.

I just seen the rest update. New name(I hate Might), and re-balanced/shuffled effects.. My initial reaction after the discussion we had here is Fuuuuuu. I'll wait and see how it feel little bit later..

Even average people know how to use difficult settings, right?

Actually, I am pretty sure that I was the one who brought the Saudi arm purchases, although I used it as an another example of escalation and instability in the regional arm race. Just in case you were confused, there was no shred of implication that the Saudis can't use some social progress and reforms, only noting that this is not the change we see her per your cold war reference attempt at positive change. I specifically used the example IRGC example strategic goal of exporting the Islamic Revolution which is evidently not only relevant but only reinforced by recent and actively acted upon on every opportunity. [] In contrast, can you be more specific what is the Saudi agenda? because last heard of they had couple of policy changes in recent years and can you give me example of Saudi's actively working on it. Because again its not about who is the good guy, there are no good guys here, its about who is reacting, who is the catalyst in the midst of our situation. On the surface you can say that Iran in Syria was only protecting its interest like Saudi in Bahrain(although Bahrain and Syria has different history..), or that Iran support of Shia radicals is just like Saudi recent support in Syria, but taking a bit more constructive approach outside of Syria in the past five years can you honestly compare their activities? because Iran pops at every single opportunity from West Asian to North East Africa. My examples were specifically there in the context of 'change' that you said that Iran want to bring to the region, after noting the past, the venue in which it continues to takes shape and those expand on Iran motivations which you can see reflected in Khominie statements about the UN/West. But what is the point of your example, other than trying to cling to your coin, because Saudi petroleum market only gives another motivation for Iran and Saudi wanting to bomb Iran over Nuclear, just like that whole Nuclear arm race in the ME is again sparked by Iran. (the rest of that paragraph was just a huge lazy fail) So again what is the positive change you envision?

Common sense suggest that arm race and proxy wars in region teaming with religious and sectarian strife, a rockbed for radicals and their training ground, With rivers of blood that begin to spill to other regions, with international community already involved and escalations might effect global markets. That this isn't the good kind of instability, especially if we have a nuclear arm race between religious fundamentalists with incompetent armies. As for your example, I assume you reference the recent Shia/Sunni conflict since 79 to the US/Russia cold war era. But who is Iran's counter part here, considering that most of Iran's regional enemies/opponents (Sunni or otherwise) since the 80s has fallen/diminished(Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Russia and USA/west), and military wise they are more competent/stronger and more self sufficient then the Saudi, there is only a power vacuum. Second, USSR fall came from within and while I'd love to see some social progress and reforms here, that is not the change that Iran "Islamic Revolution" export brings to the table. Especially now in the wake of the "Arab spring", which was viewed as the "Islamic awakening" by their Supreme leader Imam Khomeini reinforcing his convictions even further. That plus their continued reach toward Islamic extremest since 89(funding/training/arming/indoctrination not just in the ME) , their arming, rocket/nuclear programs, involvement in recent Syria conflict, UN impotentcy, and Iran's ramp up in their toxic rhetoric. Again leaves me with the question of what kind of generally beneficial change you envision here, unless you just wanted to make the obvious point that "instability isn't necessarily bad", or just looking for ways to diminish the issue, because some anti "westren" bias?

I think that every scientist know that there is a correlation between state of mind and your physic. Most activities associated with certain areas in the brain and or various chemical production (e.g. love/dopamine laughter and sports/endorphins ). Its basically what Psychiatrist initially do, using chemicals to address chemical imbalances and effect your brain. I am not certain what you mean by direct physical effect(Mind over matter?) but placebo effect isn't necessarily a direct physical effect as you suggest e.g. the idea that you are getting a cure can relive stress, elevate your spirits, eat less comfort food, move around more maybe even exercise, get more time in the sun, laugh etc which in turn will have a positive effect on you.

Sounds interesting.

One of the few upsides of a conscript army, is that every now and then we get to have some "fun" in the courses and get this out of our system. Which is amazing, because just the thought of owning a gun makes my head spin from all the cost red tape and certifications

I always seen placebo effect is nothing more than result of positive attitude. To me placebo is the same as the will to live, hope, love, anger or whatever that drives you to wake up in the morning and live, move, laugh etc because IMO the later is what actually makes you better. I am an atheist, science is my "religion" but IMO in this respect even religion(or any kind of self delusion) works far better than those who put their stocks only in medicine and dry statistics, laying down all day long in bed depressed at endlessly contemplating their death. This certainly doesn't mean that attitude is all you need or that offers some kind of guaranty, but it the very least it will make life more bearable.

That is true in general, the moment you decide that you are too old for that **** or its getting too hard. It is the moment you give up and start your spiral down. My grandpa got to 80, he had the usual age related problems, but he always was the energetic one, always full of life and looking couple of decades younger then he was. Couple of days after we went to a trip, where he showed no signs of anything being wrong in fact his apatite was never better, he started to feel under the weather and was admitted the next day for possibly ammonia and then we they found a plate size tumor in his chest, he died a week later.(not a smoker, no major risk factors, never had any related issues, never complained) Ironically even with half family(and family friends) of doctors sometimes you can't see it coming. Still I console myself knowing that my grandpa lived his life to its fullest and enjoyed everyday, that was made possible because he lived.

Out of the copyright/trademark/patent intellectual property trinity. I think that Trademarks are the least objectionable, though I HATE the guys who abuse it by playing at trademark "realestate"(hijacking trademark so they can leverage them back to the companies for a price)

I guess it depends on how you test it. If you familiar with loadouts in the field, you can certainly make an educated guess based on rate of fire and how loud it sounds. But in lab "blind" test I'll be betting that most of us can't(especially if its single shots only)

That right here is your problem, either you think that some view the Saudis as the good guys or instead of convince that they "are opposite sides of the same coin" you need to be more specific in what respect. Since everyone are familiar with their many similarities, even your die hard proponents of "westren" policy(especially from the US), however, similar is not the same e.g. Some might say that US and Russia were on the same side of the coin during ww2: both fought Germany, both didn't agree with Nazi ideology, both lost a lot of men in that struggle etc etc.. that a lot of both or a lot BS if you are using your coin in the wrong context. In our case, in the context of what I spoke of they might be similiar, but compared to Saudis Iran efforts are in a different league. The first part is perfectly reasonably vague nice play on terms, many will agree that generally change is good. of course the real question is what kind change you are talking about with Iran build up, and the resulting regional build up? I don't suppose its social progress and hopefully its not Nuclear arm race.

Makes sense.

I am not certain that the term of use thingy you mentioned is strictly true. I can't recall the exact details, but I recently read about similar case where news outlet was sued after it lifted a photographers photo posted on twitter. Their defense was that posting on public site means your stuff is up for grabs. They lost.

I agree that copyright law has its negative side, and there is room for discussion if the benefits outweigh its consequences. But lets be honest, for the most part copyright talk has nothing todo with creativity or art, but is used as an excuse for people to get away without paying..

OT: This reminds me a guy I met on the subway, I asked him if the train has passed, which he took as conversation starter(not light talk), and for 10 minutes! he ramped from something about a girl intentionally spiting him with her cigarette, to his world views, politics, conspiracy to hide the truth jumping from topic to topic. I was in shock, he was completely oblivious to social cues or hints, jumping from what I must assume was his favorite talking point to another, though to me it sounded like a hard case of diarrhea.

I love those animated gifs.

No content updates for more than a month(the portal wan't exactly a content update) is kind of bummer, though to be fair they have been busy with the Surveys and J.S. posted couple of very interesting/informative content posts in the "Issues with NPC/Item Surveys" thread.(that some may not have noticed)

^ They had almost two weeks before that and since then. Anyway it is pretty certain that we will see something next week.

Very true. Those who don't get it might want to see the recent Simpsons episode and wait for the punch, it deals with a similar issue in a light hearted way.

@Zoraptor, IMHO that was a politician answer, you don't exactly stayed in context backing up your initial claim, but mostly strayed and nitpicked to reinforced your postion in the west vs whatever argument. Also I am not US/Saudi(or Russia/Iran/..) and my definitions of stability differs from what your "because Iran wants change in the region" post implies. As I said: My definition of stability doesn't include wars, nor nuclear arm race. Compared to that I have no problem with Saudi dominate the Arab League due to their financial clout, no more than anyone else e.g. Russia holds EU energy market in the balls, do you suggest EU should follow Iran example to make a change in the region?

Literally everyone knows that. The fundamental problem though is that it is the unelected faction negotiating, not the democratically elected one. That instantly makes the negotiations illegitimate. Then the "elected" Hamas opposition to peace negotiations(and the whole will not rest until complete annihilation of Israel, and nationalism as a religious creed) makes them the fundamental problem. Thus making Rostere's "no-brainers" at the very least 180 percent off i.e. we need to apply pressure on Hamas to forsake its violence and look for a peaceful resolution between the two side through compromise. As for legitimacy and democracy, for most of us democracy implies liberal democracy, certainly not democracy of the rifles. However for Hamas(whose roots is in the Muslim Brotherhood), democracy was just a Trojan horse, using the process to gain international recognition allowed by delusional people who think that chanting democracy has magical effect, since then Hamas have been slowly eradicating any hopes of liberal democracy. Regardless Hamas the democratically elect has lost any legitimacy it had, the moment they used their militants to open fire on their political rivals and Palestinian security forces. Since then we have two Palestinian entities. As for Palestinian legitimacy in the world and negotiations. It is PLO that gained international recognition as the sole Palestinian representatives since 79, they gained UN observatory status. They negotiated with Israel and signed the agreements that allowed that gained Palestinian autonomy under as the Palestinian Authority. More recently they have been reaffirmed as the sole Palestinian representatives and was upgraded to state observer in the UN. Fatah is part of the PLO, while Hamas... ultimately just a legitimate fundamentalist radical Islamic element, that hinders the possibility of positive outcome of peace negotiations also commonly refereed to as terrorist organization. Ah, but you're quite happy to lay those problems on other countries. People need food and accommodation and jobs wherever they are. I imagine that many would want to return to the homes Israel seized in 1948 or later, even if that is impractical now. For the rest, so far as I am concerned they can throw every illegal settler out of every illegal settlement for a Palestinian. Equitable, considering the homes and land Israel has seized arbitrarily over the years. No. That practical note, expanded on the consequence of the international community political decision backfiring and hindering peace talks, that I started with couple of post back. Not suggesting a current solution "to lay those problems on other countries", although I did stipulate that if for the last 60 years instead of wasting billions on camps, using Palestinians as political pawns, we used it as incentive to slow resettlement, like everywhere else, we wouldn't have this artificially inflated problem. Ironically today solution are exactly the same, only the problem got that much bigger.. and Palestinians are still being used by Iran, Turkey, Arab league, Arab Neighbors etc for selfish political purposes, but other than that they piss on them as always. I am happy you understand how impractical most aspects of "right of return" are, I am certain that the Palestinian leaders know that, but I strongly doubt that Palestinian people understand that and influences like Hamas only moving the goal post further and further away from solution toward resistance(like angry teenagers, arguing for the sake of the argument) . Already today you can see that while West-bank flourish, new infrastructure, new city, jobs etc Gaza lay in ruins. As for accommodation or let say compensation. Like I said before I am really not the bleeding heart in that respect i.e. just as many Israelis were kicked from Arab countries since the Arab failed invasion of Israel to date, with far more value in property lost than Palestinians, but they got nothing and built a lot. While the Palestinians got from us(UN) far more than they lost, and far far far more than any other refugees and only reaching for more to appease their sense of victimization. It should be noted that the deal that Palestinians were offered by Rabin is very similar to the one offered today(with the guiding hand of USA on their balls) and at least two other occasions in between.. Maybe I am biased in this but i feel that if the Israelis get a best outcome from a deal(per one of the independent think-tanks deals) they would jump to take it, and be able to enforce it. However, I doubt that if the Palestinians get a best outcome for them from such deal, that they would be able to take it and enforce it.

It certainly was Hamas military wing that took over Gaza, they polled the trigger, took out the official Palestinian security forces, expelled many of their political rivals and violently suppressed any opposition afterwards. If you don't like calling it an 'armed coup', I already offered you an alternative terminology "a conflict resolution with guns". But again you sidetrack miss the point, because regardless of semantics above, the fundamental issue of Hamas situation in Gaza is that in the peace talk the Palestinian side represent only by half of the Palestinians(those in the Westbank), while Hamas ruling the other half opposes peace negotiations with Israel, don't accept the PA in Westbank as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and find any agreement reached by them with Israel worthless... So reiterating from my previous post, this is THE HUGE elephant in the peace negotiation room. I haven't ignored or addressed any of that, but I do find it irrelevant, because your points about Jordan and refugee integration would be valid for all refugees host countries, where majority of "Palestinian refuges" wouldn't be considered refuges. The point was that of all the places suffering refugee and dislocations since ww2, its the only place where the international community perpetuated a refugee problem and that political decision has backfired. Instead of defusing the problem through integration, their money created dependency on refugees camps, only exacerbated the problem with each generation(here after the fact children, grandchildren... also count as refugee in a never ending cycle). What we see today is the result of this decades old "refugee" regime, in which we sunk billions, it has nothing to show for other than a welfare class, a breeding ground for extremists and now a block to peace. Also on a practical sided, there are ~3 million "refugees" let say they get this decades long for "right of return". Where would the "refugees" go, where would they live/work, what would they eat/drink? and once they realized that nothing changed, there nothing over the rainbow in the promised land, how do you think that they will react toward the relatively moderate Palestinian leadership in the westbank and that piece paper with word peace on it they delivered...