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Unless the device in question constantly requires you to wear a respirator mask to monitor gas exchanges, calorie counts aren't something I'd put much stock in, sorry. A VO2max test-derived calorie expenditure estimation coupled with body fat % measurement is much more reliable, and even with that there is a non-negligible error margin. Counting calories is a self-imposed torment anyway, and nobody should be doing it. Train hard, train smart, and eat as much as you need. (and then some, if you are a skinny bastard like myself) Then again, I have better things to spend $150 on, so I might just be rationalizing here. edit: oh, great. ninja'd. I definitely need to type posts faster.

Yeah, I find it rather ludicrous that the innocence principle was abrogated to kick him out and not even a preponderance of evidence criteria was used when deciding to take disciplinary action against him, but now he will have to go through a lengthy court process where those factors are hurdles he will have to overcome. And in case he can't do it, he'll probably end up deep in debt, his life basically destroyed at 23. I agree, life isn't fair. Which is why the state shouldn't make things worse by making arbitrary decisions. Double standards are synonymous with unfairness. On the flipside, a strict application of the same standards to everyone in all cases means that people will sometimes get away with murder. But hey, where in that social contract you never signed says the system is infallible? Yeah...

Hahaha, oh wow. Walsingham being accused of being a lefty! Welcome to the club, old boy comrade! I've seen people freak out when their favorite theory is challenged by new research, it happens relatively often in the strength and conditioning culture, and it's not a phenomenon restricted to students — I've seen people with advanced degrees throw incredibly childish tantrums and fall back to name-calling over social networks. The problem, I think, lies with the causes and mechanisms that result in those people being "the leaders of tomorrow", and those are societal and cultural, not circumscribed to universities. The Age of Reason ended a long time ago, and democracy is a word that has completely lost its meaning.

"Colleges are supposed to be places of enlightenment and reason"? Funny, I thought that's just where people went for a piece of paper that supposedly improves their chances of getting a decent job, in exchange for ~15 years of indentured servitude. themoreyouknow.jpg I read this article just now, I didn't know where to post it. I figure this is as good a place as any (I don't think I'm hijacking your thread too much): Jerry Seinfeld and I are among a dying breed

I stopped reading here. My original response was going to be "does it hurt to be so ignorant?", but then I realized that this is, in fact, perfectly consistent with what you've been saying all along, and it is also factually accurate. You had me going for a second there! I'll explain: by "Western ideology" you don't mean separation of powers, rule of law and popular sovereignty, because you have never explicitly alluded to this. No, by "Western ideology" you actually mean corporate plutocracy, consequentialism and authoritarian militarism. Viewed from this perspective, everything you have been saying is much more coherent and actually supported by facts. This is proof of what many have suspected all along: that you are a very successful troll, quite possibly someone else's alt, and at any rate, well acquainted with Poe's law. Bravo, good sir. Bravo. /golfclap

I didn't feel they ignored the possibility of the light side ending any more than they ignored the possibility of the dark side ending — all your choices in K1 are equally irrelevant in K2 outside of a few conversations and a cameo, which I'm thankful for. Obs took the KotOR franchise and ran with it. You say that the state of affairs in K2 is hard to explain with a LS ending in the first game. It's actually harder to explain if Revan went DS: Malak had already brought the Republic to its knees, and by the end Revan has regained command of the Star Forge and handed the Republic a crushing defeat. Why didn't he finish the job? And, of course, what Gromnir said. Avellone doesn't like the idea of the Force ****ing with people's fate, so he actually cranked it up to 11 to show how it runs contrary to free will and you shouldn't like it either. Clever, no?

And, for like, the 3 of you still playing this game, the next expansion has been announced: http://news.ea.com/press-release/company-news/eas-e3-2015-press-conference-be-broadcast-live-june-15-eacom Ah, so this is what Avellone has gone to work on.

I had to look that up. Wormholes, zero-point energy and even negative energy I had heard about. Is over-unity a thing?

I have literally no idea what you two are talking about.

Well, perhaps I simply fail at writing up posts quickly? Yes? Maybe?

Yeah, what I don't get is what your weed-influenced ideas have to do with conspiracies. A conspiracy involves, by its very nature, several people acting in concert. If you are pissed off because <reasons>, there are more effective ways to help you deal with it (I personally recommend going all out on 2' intervals against a punching bag) than typing up a post on the internet, which is a surefire way to get you even more pissed off. But hey, in the words of Epic Beard Man, "it's better to be pissed off than pissed on", right? edit: C... Chris? Is that you?

How about we find a way to convert post counts to minutes. I estimate that a weighted average of what it takes me to write up a post is about 5 minutes (taking into consideration both drive-bys and walls of text). So my post count would be equivalent to 375+ hours spent ****posting here. Wow, more than I have logged in any one single game... T.O.M.B.S. GOTY 2015 edit: wait, that's without the hidden WoT posts. FML

Lets you choose between launching a game and updating it first Updates on launch anyway

Shady, I want to buy your rock.

How and why would you prevent it? I mean, the guy is co-founder, I doubt they could have just offered him More Money. We'll probably never know the real reasons why he's leaving, so speculate away...

That **** would give Frank Horrigan nightmares.

No, but the government does choose what he is charged with. And it's not treason. I admit, I was wrong — he probably wouldn't be tried for treason, but for "willfully communicating classified information to an unauthorized person", as per 18 U.S. Code § 798. You never know, though. The contention would be whether the leaks were in "any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States", seeing as PRISM is of dubious legality to begin with. If it were eventually declared illegal, could he still be charged for blowing the whistle on it? Heh. It's funny because Snowden leaks stuff about secret mass surveillance and he faces imprisonment and hefty fines. Lyudmila Savchuk exposes Russian internets trolling ops and she... gets fired. And in response, she sues her former employer. It's like they really are doing it "for the lulz".

Wow, look at this! BruceVC once again using words he doesn't actually understand! I'm shocked. Now, for what treason really is: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html And no, he didn't compromise the security of his country, because mass surveillance has been shown to be useless as far as "securing" anything goes. This was proven to you mathematically by Al2O3, and the FBI has admitted it as well. Wake the **** up. So, no. Snowden is neither legally nor morally a traitor, no matter what dumbass pundits or, more worryingly, Congressmen and Senators keep saying.

I've been here for ten years. And you're just now discovering that I'm not very bright? Anyway, regarding your take on the actual purpose of paid shills, what do you suggest the consensus on doing something about the Kremlin should be, and why is it up to us to do something? Historically, getting involved in other countries' internal affairs hasn't worked very well in general, and has gone especially badly in the case of Russia. Yeah, we (well, you, not me in particular) should be talking more about GCHQ because you are a UK citizen and not a Russian citizen. You are partly responsible for what the UK government does with your tax money, much like I'm partly responsible for the rampant corruption and mismanagement of the Spanish state. They are part of our obligations as citizens of so-called democratic societies, since you brought it up. Russia is neither democratic nor our country. In short, if instead of Monte it had been Fighter posting this, I'd probably have skipped the GCHQ reference. Oh, and I'm sure Snowden would prefer to be at home in the US, were it not for the trumped-up treason charges he'd face if he went back. Track record on whistleblower protection isn't exactly impressive over there, mate.

Oh, nice. I got SR4 a while ago at a friend's urging so we could play coop, and had a blast (though we didn't really play that much coop after all). I'm getting SR3, thanks for the heads-up. A pity Dragonfall hasn't been translated yet, otherwise I'd get it as a gift. :/

Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that sort of thing. As I said, and evidenced by how seriously both oby and Bruce are taken by people here, I'd wager the effectiveness of gov't plants is fairly limited. I meant more stuff like the leaks about GCHQ's cyberwarfare and propaganda tools. (I know I sound like ****ing broken record, what can I say, we all need a schtick)

I know you're joking, but... *cough* high quality *cough* In all seriousness, I don't think this is meant as an actual J'accuse by Monte, just continuing the old in-joke about alts, trolls and paid shills here. The article itself is hardly news at this point, though. We've had reports of this before, and as far as what governments do on the internets it's rather tame (not to mention lame). I'd like to know what the effectiveness of these groups is, as their operatives are so strident that I doubt they actually succeed in convincing anyone (if you've read the comments section of a news site you know what I'm talking about) that isn't already a member of the fan club. However, I do find it odd that peeps are seemingly more interested in what the KGB FSB Kremlin's community manager does than what the government they may have voted into office is doing. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

^ gotta love scientists essentially accusing other scientists of confirmation bias and then discarding their findings based on... nothing but their own biases.

In sociology and anthropology, there is no such thing as "The One Study (to rule them all)", and anyone contending otherwise should be regarded with suspicion. Problem is "appeals to common sense" are, in some cases fallacious without malice, and in others an outright exercise in deceit by oversimplifying things. They simply have no place in even semi-serious discussion. Hell, even the guy from "the best show in the universe" realizes this. His video is funnier, more informative and a hell of a lot more rigorous. If she was trying to debunk the narrative from "Feminism 101", she should have presented the evidence she alludes to, and my point is that you wouldn't accept such weak argumentation from someone you didn't agree with beforehand. If her evidence was insufficient, suffered from methodological problems or was just plain old factually wrong, then it would be a weak refutation and she would have to try harder (better luck next time!). But at least that would be an honest attempt at trying to get people to examine the issue by themselves and form an informed opinion, rather than the boring shot at getting people to drink the Kool-Aid we ended up with. That's how we progress towards truth, by examining facts and discarding hypotheses that are contradicted by them, not by walking in the general direction we'd like truth to be in, and presenting evidence later. In this context, the process is more important than the result. But critically, you are glossing over the worst part of the video (from 3:18 on), where she discusses what leads people to go for the career paths and make the decisions they do. She ridicules the social conditioning hypothesis (complete with the "watch out, badass over here" gesture) and discards it by saying that "perhaps in the pursuit of happiness men and women take somewhat different paths" (no **** Sherlock) and that "it's patronizing to suggest that women aren't free and self determining human beings". That is a by-the-book appeal to emotion, it is a rhetorical trick to lend an appearance of substance to an otherwise worthless argumentation. It is also quite difficult to excuse as an honest mistake or poor choice of words. Not to mention that it flies in the face of what we know about conditioning and the decision-making process. But, eh, details. I have no idea if she's an incredibly serious scholar that always acts in good faith and her books are proof of this -first time I've heard of this lady- but I haven't time to read them and they are not what we're discussing here. And at any rate, the video doesn't exactly inspire me to dig into her work. (I'd appreciate it if you didn't make me watch the video again...)