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Huh. I'm going to suggest that the people you are thinking about don't really like tennis, female or otherwise. They just enjoy watching athletic women running around and grunting. I try to watch as much tennis as possible (men's or women's)—the fact that some matches feature some of the best legs in female athletes is just a bonus, and one that you don't get to appreciate with most camera angles so meh. I don't see what the problem with grunting is, either. You'd guess everyone should be used to it by now, and it's not restricted to women's tennis either. I guess whining is not solely a prerogative of video game forum members.

It's always a shock when the body goes "okay, that's enough, I'm taking over" after you've been ignoring the red flags for a while. Looks like you need to throttle back a bit—hope your obligations allow for it. Last time I got a stomach flu I had to cut recovery shorter than I would have otherwise because I was at risk of missing an important exercise involving explosives priming, machinegun field practice and crawling. Mostly crawling. Anyway, get well soon bud. I always check FB when I have reason to suspect the victims are lying about their injuries (I've actually busted people this way... hello perjury...) Isn't that how they busted a bunch of post-9/11 benefits fraudsters? Yeah, people...

Russia has a rich history, an immense cultural patrimony and beautiful women. But I know I'd be visiting mostly to watch Putin strangle a bear... with another bear. You need to highlight that.

The slippery slope works both ways, I think. There is a recorded tendency by those in power to abuse and expand their power if no resistance is encountered, but that is also an argument that can be wielded to stand against reforms that can be advantageous to society as a whole. Ideally, the people would handle their own affairs and need very little support or intervention from the state—but then again we need the state (and the rule of law entails a degree of repression) because real societies and people behave and interact in... less than ideal ways. The optimal balance... your guess is as good as mine, quite literally.

You are, of course, absolutely right. Different people hired to handle different tasks more or less independently of each other. I'm more wondering if the pr shenanigans and hype are really necessary if your target knows precisely what kind of game you are making. And I'm not suggesting "fire a community manager and hire a new lead systems designer!" either, no. Back in 2000 you'd see ads for games in mags, a preview, maybe an interview. It was more straightforward and there was no need for silliness in the vein of "press a button and something awesome happens!!1". Of course, the job of marketing types is to sell—not only to the public, but to potential employers... I dunno. Simpler times, man. Tell you what. You refrain from making assumptions about me and my motivations and I'll stay at 2 warnings. Deal? In my time here, I have made no value judgments of CoD, ever. I have not explicitly or implicitly referred to the players that constitute the target market for those games. I take no special pride in being a fan of old cult games, obscure Pakistani flicks or defunct deodorant brands. But what I can tell you is that I do not like CoD games—I like party-based games with a strong tactical component built on top of a solid narrative that supports a wide array of C&C; games that offer the best bang for my buck. I also happen to enjoy wargames but thankfully there's no shortage of those. I realize that, looking at the numbers, I am in the minority. And I can live with that. What I'm not so thrilled about is companies stripping down and applying obscene amounts of makeup to games I'm interested in a priori in an effort to appeal to the largest possible amount of people, while systematically promoting an image that the finished product doesn't live up to. Not because I hate greed and dishonesty (which I do) or because I rejoice in being a special snowflake (which I don't), but because that very business model is conducive to producing games with little entertainment value for me.

Though I agree with your post, I sometimes really wish BW would go back and focus more on, you know, the gaming aspect of the games and less on the marketing/pr/community management BS. This is from an outsider's perspective, obviously, and there are signs that there is more going on under the hood (I remember reading some interesting posts by a gameplay designer for ME2), but the apparent focus on stuff that is, at best, ancillary and should be taking a back seat to gameplay is style over substance. It's made even worse by the fact that practical applications of the principles of "engaging the community" and "listening to fans" usually amount to nothing and sometimes backfire—I'm thinking of the "heal to full" and "the endings weren't universally disliked" debacles as examples, but they aren't the only ones. I don't know how much of that is attributable to being "a division of EA", and at the end of the day, I don't care. From their track record, it's plain that EA has only one aim and that is making these numbers with all their games. It's a legitimate goal, but one that unfortunately precludes them from making the kind of games I'd enjoy best. Now, I had a lot of fun with the ME3 trilogy and I knew what I was getting into, but the replay value is frankly low. Call me old fashioned but I don't need to be playing a brand new, cookie-cutter, completely forgettable game every other week; I can be entertained for months on end with the same game if it's good enough. Obviously that makes me a non-ideal customer in the eyes of corporations whose business model is based on churning out a new(?) sequel every two years. Though, judging by the crowdfunding phenomenon, maybe I'm not the only one. Whoa, that ended up being more of a rant than I had intended. Oh well, nothing new under the sun.

But Wals' synthesis follows naturally from your particular example. Defeat smoking and something else will replace it as the preventable leading cause of death worldwide—this, in his view, will eternally perpetuate the mandate of those who seek to make everyone "healthier", which also connects with his "delusions of immortality" remark, before. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. What I am not so convinced of is his other assertion that everything affects cancer rates. This may be strictly true, but the extent to which this risk is relevant is what makes it suspect. I mean, your body fights cancer constantly, in your sleep. It could fail to naturally defeat it at some point, so an argument could be made that sleeping gives you cancer. This is clearly an absurd conclusion. And while I'm not more convinced than Wals than governments (and especially undemocratic, transnational bureaucracies) are exempt from reaching absurd conclusions (deliberately or by sheer disconnection from reality), I'm afraid this is a big ol' slippery slope. The amount of power and ability to regulate that states have is arbitrary and not everyone will agree exactly where the proverbial line in the sand lies. But it has to be drawn somewhere.

Good point. For some reason I find grand strategy LP's much more gripping than for any other genres. I had never thought such games had a "storyline", as they are all about the gameplay, decisions and planning. But if I'm not the one playing it and it has no plot to speak of in a conventional sense, why are they so ****ing awesome?

This experiment was brought to you by the great N. Tesla himself. Show some respect.

*tips hat* Well played, sir. Well played.

Well, can't speak for anyone else, but in my case it's my theoretical degree in physics at work. Though my line of work is more physiques, actually. *cough* Yeah, OK. I'll go sit in the corner now. (IIRC Zoraptor and Rostere are actual scientists, maybe someone else. Scientists are people too)

You seriously don't notice the sexualized advertisements and other content everywhere you go? Sexualized ads are sexual orientation-neutral, mostly. They just focus on exacerbating the physical attractiveness of the model, regardless of sex. So I guess an homosexual female could be just as enticed by a Victoria's Secret ad as me. I'm not defending it, but objectification is not necessarily a celebration of heterosexuality. Maybe where you live it's different? But I was under the impression that Germany has some seriously stringent statutes regarding advertisements.

@AGX-17 It seems to me that the issue is how you used "observe" in your post in a colloquial sense as opposed to what it means in a scientific context (especially when dealing with particle physics), which is misleading given the otherwise scientific tone of the post. I know I felt that something wasn't quite right with that sentence ("neutrinos cannot be observed"), so I guess the reaction from an actual physicist would be much stronger. Also, I think you are conflating physics with math. And while at a fundamental level, physics is math, the way we make sense out of the math is not by glancing at formulae and going "a-HA!". So you can probably explain the QM atomic model to just about anyone given enough interest and time, but only people that in addition have a strong math background will be able to accurately calculate the probability density for 4f orbitals, or whatever. Does that mean you can only explain physics to mathematicians? Also, f=mv? I don't remember that one from my classical mechanics classes.

Everyone have a sad story... its not about that, just as with crime it is not about correlation and contributing factors, it is about the realization that you can overcome then and improve your life. Every social change start somewhere exposure on media, social pressure, education etc, however, there is nothing better then personal realization and will to put an effort. You are a personal trainer, tell me how many of the people who came to you and said they didn't care or shoveled excuses, at the end of the road said they didn't know how they lived before? So yes my bottom line is the same. It is about not giving up on yourself, self control, small steps.. If understanding contributing factors is part of that then great, but more often then not it used as excuse not to start anything. There are two kinds of people losers and winners, winners are not losers and losers are those who give up. I don't know what drives people to change their habits, because it's different for everyone. In my case, it was something as silly and vain as the hope that I would get noticed more by the opposite sex (it worked, but not quite the way I expected...). For others it may be medical prescription after a check-up, a desire to look better, a way to blow off steam. But it really is a minority that are both healthy and thinking about long-term health. So I guess many people don't really "care" but still do it, while there are others that are aware of the problem but, for whatever reasons don't ever get started. I'm sorry man, but I'm not buying into this manichaean vision of winners and losers, of strong and weak. That is a division that is only really valid if made in retrospect, evaluated at the end of a person's life. But until that point, it's still up in the air; and whatever paths a person takes are the result of a myriad of factors, only one of which is willpower. Unless you believe that some people are naturally weak minded, but then the proposition is even worse (punish the weak for being weak). Also, do not take this as a defense of hedonism—I am fairly frugal myself—but I honestly believe positive encouragement tends to work better at getting the point across than the tried and not-so-true A HUNDRED LASHES!!! method. For non-psychopaths, at least. Right, that sounds sensible. Now, precisely where is this "nasty" threshold at? Take lower back pain, for instance. Sure, it lacks the shock value of, say, a West Nile Virus outbreak, but it's the #1 cause of lost work hours in many developed countries. That sure looks like something public health policy should be addressing, don't you think? And speaking of gross, what is exactly "soy milk chai tea latte"? If it doesn't come from something with teats, it sure as **** is not "milk". edit: huh, so "teats" is allowed, but the colloquial alternative isn't. Hooray for consistency.

From what I've gathered (I have not played either EE), both versions could really have used a longer development/QA cycle. Even after the bug-related backlash from the first game, they still decided to go ahead and do the same for BG2. I'm going to hold off purchase for a while, until they give the game the polish one would expect from a finished product and, most importantly, until my must-have mods have been updated (Y U NO ASCENSION?!). Also, the way they have handled translations leaves a lot to be desired. That alone is reason enough for me not to buy, even though personally I do not play translated/dubbed versions. I can't comment on the quality of the new content, but their M.O. with regards to gold status quality standards does not give me much hope for a Beamdog BG3.

Yeah... "some" has the advantage of being a completely arbitrary amount so it facilitates a reasonable-sounding retort while making it impossible for you to be strictly wrong. Read the report itself, the corruption costs amount to a bit under the annual budget for the EU. Oh, and while we're at it, let's also gloss over the fact that corruption is by no means homogeneously spread, being worse in countries in the lower wealth brackets... or where the sea of money is actually rather dry. Nah, accusations of corruption coming from the EU are an exercise in hipocrisy, no matter how you spin it.

I really hate carving up posts (takes the focus away from the topic and turns discussion into a ping-pong match where reductionism is the racket), so I'm going to ramble a bit instead. You know... I used to think like you. And I don't mean this in a condescending manner so I apologize if I come off that way. I used to dislike fat people and despise their indulgence, their lack of self-restraint and willpower, their weakness. Then I got to work for a time as a personal trainer and found out that there is much more to their lives than what my limited, caricaturesque images of people I hadn't even met allowed room for. Ever since coming to this realization, I have made a conscious effort to keep in check my tendency to make generalizations and quick judgments at first glance. It's an arduous effort to constantly second-guess myself, but I feel I connect better with people. Now, after this heartwarming tale of self-discovery that I'm sure brought a tear to your eye, I am going to discuss a few points that don't sit well with me. if something is a contributing factor it by definition cannot be an excuse... because it is a contributing factor. "correlation does not imply causation" is not a valid way to dismiss a correlation. In this case, the issue is not whether poverty equals obesity, but rather whether or not to tax sugar. The correlation before means that an indirect tax on sugar will hit people that are already struggling to get by harder. That's hardly fair, is it? taxing is, by and large, ineffective at modifying the behavior of people. If this is, in fact, a public health matter, then the focus must be on fixing the problem rather than simply punishing unhealthy habits—not only because it is an illegitimate use of taxing power, but because it really only serves to move wealth out of people's pockets and into the "public" coffers. It does not address the public health issue, it simply accounts for it. people are much more receptive to educational efforts than coercive or punitive measures. Case in point, the traffic code. Provide people with a general health roadmap and work to make it so following it is not much more difficult, and people will be healthier. Much like better roads and driver training results in less accidents.

DDO was released back in 2006 (holy **** 8 years already??) and went F2P with a model that more or less works as you describe (you need to purchase the additional adventures/classes/races) and has been getting steady content updates since, so I'm guessing it's profitable enough. It's based on the Eberron setting, which is apparently a big turn-off for many people. In my opinion the game worked beautifully so long as you kept away from PvP. So the market is there. Neverwinter, on the other hand...

Well, there's always the ignore/report buttons. However Oby's threads are always popular (as lof's were) and foster some rather interesting discussions. I've been gone for a while, but it's not oby I see trolling...

Klepacki is awesome. But, as with everything, the Nod version is more better. (that was his actual band btw) OT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhOvbfyyJw "ingame footage" indeed.

That's a nice sentiment. And maybe in the UK it's different, but here the results for the latest voting survey were made public yesterday and, even in the face of rampant corruption and waste, judiciary manipulation (we got an official letter of admonition from the EU, for all the good that will do) and record unemployment and poverty levels, the ruling party is still expected to win the next election. I don't know what word I'd use to refer to ourselves, but it's definitely not "citizens". —For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, "hold office"; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve. John F. Kennedy, 1955

Right. The implicit basis for your reasoning is that whatever fatal malady cancer is substituted with down the road, has an equivalent or greater cost, so decreasing cancer risk means no overall savings. But cancer is a chronic disease that is particularly expensive to treat, unlike other old age-related acute afflictions. In addition, this logic can be used to justify opposing any public health-related reforms aimed at reducing the impact of lifestyle or occupational diseases.

If you think that's cool, you have all it takes. Get started, and you'll be "into training" sooner than you realize. Baby steps, man...

You seem awfully certain that the choice factor outweighs any others. And I may be inclined to agree, if the choice was whether to be poor or not. I'm sure you can see how absurd the implication that people willingly make an informed decision to be poor is. Because, you see, the correlation between obesity and poverty is a fact. http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2667.full As Enoch excellently explained, value judgments are not the best way to handle this, regardless of how expedient they may be. You are going to have to explain this one old boy, because I don't understand how removing the costs of cancer treatment from the equation does nothing to improve the healthcare bottom line. edit: I f***in hate this new boards code messing with my quotes and font sizes. That is all.