213374U

Yeah, CM crystals are hideous. I only use the mint green one. Problem is that regular "classic" crystals require level 50 and a bunch of Corusca Gems... so I just grab one off the collections tab to slap on the offhand as soon as I hit 10 with an alt. I guess 61 gear can be useful for companions, but I mostly don't bother—the pieces themselves are fugly and ripping the mods off is just not worth it when the difference with 58 stuff is barely noticeable. I respect your completionist urge, though. And yeah, the crafting/comms system is all over the place. The weekly comm cap is especially jarring: "nope, that's enough progress for this week, go play outside!".

Magnificent, splendid. Check it out. You can tell she's hard as steel where she needs to be, but also soft and inviting around the parts you'd grab her by. This one clearly requires a real man with a firm touch. I never fail to be mesmerized by the sight of a... Browning M2.

If you can stomach it (I personally can't) go to Makeb. Learn the dailies there and find the most efficient way to do a few of them that are in the same mesa. Some GSI dailies are really quick once you know it and they net good XP and cash. Since you'll be fighting tons of trash mobs (especially Rep side), you'll hit the cap in no time. In addition, Makeb rewards basic comms, and finishing the planetary arc rewards a few elite comms too. Other than the fancy +41 crystals and the Gormak thingamajig schematics, there is literally zero reason to bother with classic comms at this point. Spend your planetary comms as per Spider's advice, and hit CZ-198 as soon as you feel confident to get the necessary reputation with Czerka to buy a 69 mainhand from there, provided you can't craft the hilt/barrel yourself. You could also try heading over to Oricon directly as completion of the quests there rewards you with almost a full set of 66 armor for your class, but Oricon can be tough. Level 50HMs have been rendered stupid easy by power creep, but the 55s are a different story—if you are pugging them, expect a 50/50 fail chance. Also, I would PvP as much as you can before hitting the cap, as the system is borked so that before level 55, gear is basically irrelevant, but at 55 if you are ungeared you are cannon fodder. It's also a rather fun break from grinding comms/XP/cash/rep. edit: yay I broke the quote. Getting old here.

Heh, missed this. But then you are simply offering a description of extrinsic qualities and magnitudes gathered by observation (albeit with the mind's eye), rather than applying qualities by association with objects. Here, the objectification allegation cannot stand beyond the acknowledgment that the physical form of a human being is, much like any other matter aggregate, a parcel of reality and therefore susceptible to description. I'm trying, but I don't see how rejecting (implicitly or not) a specific physical trait from the mental image that is the physique of your ideal woman could conceivably constitute objectification, in the strict sense. It's also worth noting that an ideal image is not an actual, real person and hence, no possible objectification of real women can occur as a result of its description. I'm not excluding it—I'm dismissing it as irrelevant. If only because the opposite argument is also possible and it also adds nothing. Describe any woman in the most abjectly demeaning terms you can, and there's bound to be "some" that will be pleased, for whatever reasons. That's why I was asking for a bit more rigor, as anyone can have a poorly formulated, badly grounded, and grossly misinformed opinion, but when it comes to defending it before others (and, more to the point, expect to change how other people view the world), one needs a solid bedrock of clearly defined ideas upon which to build the discourse. I'm not flat out dismissing it either, I simply see no reason to accept that it should be acknowledged simply because it comes from humans. I'm trying to get to the crux, without getting bogged down in the minefield that is "opinion", because an opinion is born out of a combination of feeling and reasoning. Discussing feelings is frankly mad and, ideally, a perfectly informed opinion that rests on flawless reasoning is actually a theorem. Yes, I suppose I see how describing an actual someone by the role they play in human society could be construed as objectification. I'm not sure I agree on the point that idealization must necessarily ascribe only "positive" (whatever that means in the context, and that may be the source of the contention) qualities—my perspective may be warped by a strict or out-of-context definition of idealization (as in, an ideal gas). Regardless, I'd contend that, going by the way you describe idealization, objectification may result from a specific choice of qualities or properties in the construction of the archetype, but it's not the necessary result of describing an ideal concept, where applicable. To use your own example, I could modify your description of Mother Teresa to simply the quintessential old, pious, selfless woman. That fulfills your requirements of a total lack of nuance for the character and focus on positive qualities. However it says nothing of her role and is otherwise not objectifying in any way I can see. Thanks for the mental gymnastics, btw. Maybe once this is clear, the next point is the central role of sex in this whole objectification debate.

I can't help but think the game would have been so much better if it all ended there on Earth. You're actually defeated (so no happy ending), the enemies have won, and all of that which they wished to portray happened. But noooooooooo, they had to add spacekid rather than a proper "you're screwed over, here are the results of your loss" (an awesome thing Game of Thrones had when loosing the bossfight, but here it would be just the generic ending, taking in account what you did in the past). I'm sure some people still would be dissapointed (as always seen with non-happy endings), but it wouldn't be as **** as the current way. The way I see it, if you're going to man up and write something that deviates significantly from the "and they rode off into the sunset" formula, you need to be very careful with a buildup that justifies the final nut kick and make it consistent with the overall mood of the setting. The whole ME theme seems to be about good ol' human ingenuity and courage saving those poor silly aliens (from themselves, often) and overcoming apparently unsurmountable obstacles. It's basically one huge ego stroking journey. That's why I don't think a "you lose!" ending could ever work in this context. I've for years praised Lacroix's and Ming Xiao's endings in Bloodlines. They made perfect sense within the lore and the setting, and by choosing either the player shows to have been, deliberately or not, ignoring the writing on the wall. No such thing in ME3. You just jump through the last hoop... to fall flat on your face. Unjustified shoehorning brought about by a writing inability to bring the plot under control and the divorce between a not-so-clever unfathomable evil and a medium that is all about interactivity. I did the same thing when I played it, and was infuriated that the last save point was just before jumping into the beam-thing on Earth. Stumbling forward very slowly down long corridors is not a fun way to end a video game that is mostly about being a kickass sci-fi commando. Doing it twice, doubly so. That was dreadful. Funny thing is, that's actually not the last savepoint. The game autosaves just before the conversation with the kid... only to automatically overwrite that save when the conversation ends. It's possible to alt+tab and manually make a copy of the autosave and reload it later to avoid the tedium that is fighting Marauder Shields and dragging yourself through the Citadel corridors... I wonder what the hell they were thinking.

Without knowing the internal workings, I doubt we'll ever know if it's a fail on their part, or humanity's. And considering how expensive big data analysis is, it probably falls under "trade secret". However, # of comments on news sites depending on the subject would seem to reinforce your point (no I have not actually taken a statistical approach, just my appreciation). I remember seeing a scumbag Steve pic that went like "has the power of the greatest information highway ever devised at his fingertips - uses it to look for porn"... so yeah.

Yeah, I'm going to butt in and add that HIIT is just not for everyone. A minimum level of fitness is required and due to how taxing it can be, a medical check up is in order before attempting it. Play it safe, folks.

Yeah... the ending was universally panned, with good reason. I get that the game is not supposed to be about a feel-good trip, but slapping you across the face by ignoring everything you have done so far for the sake of an "artistic vision" is a huge step back in this medium. This is also without getting into how nonsensical, quackish, and generally awful the writing that facilitates it all is. A collection of cool and touching moments, brought down overall by writer egomania. Certainly not the climactic finale it was set up to be. The MP was kind of addicting, though. You made the right choice the first time around, btw. Shoot the bugger in the face, then alt+F4.

I'd appreciate it if you post results in a couple of weeks, I'm interested if and how it works out for you. And about the drop-sets, those work well with dumbbell exercises and especially well with seated Arnold shoulder presses, one-armed preacher curls (try drop sets AND forced reps at the end!). I wouldn't use them with big barbell lifts because form inevitably suffers a bit and that can lead to injuries when doing very heavy BB exercises like standing military's or bench pressing. Barbell bench pressing without a training parter is suicidal, drop sets or not and I hope you're not doing that. Dumbbell bench pressing is more effective anyway because of better ROM, it works the stabilizers much harder, trains both sides of your body independently, allows a healthier grip and it can be safely performed without a partner. Will do. Solid advice on the bench press, too. I stopped doing it with a barbell some time ago due to the reasons you describe, and also the fact that my shoulder didn't agree with it... supraspinatus tendonitis is no fun at all. I'm mostly doing a combination of cable work, pushups and classic dumbbell exercise to substitute... and am not missing it.

Funny. I don't know if I agree with you or not. It does sound like endurance training, somewhat. However, the first 4 minutes or so work more like rest-pause or even tabata, but the similarity gets diluted as fatigue builds up and rest periods become longer. But it is a 15 minute-block after all, and no "normal" (for lack of a better word) strength training regime that I know of works like that. Impossible to judge results from a single session either. I guess I'll try for 2-3 more sessions and see if it actually does anything to break the plateau. And yeah, I love (read: hate) drop sets. But training without a partner, they are out of the question for the big barbell lifts. Then again, I've never used dumbbells for those...

Yep. But I'd hold it off a bit. You can always suicide later and you never know what's around the corner...

I know you can be more rigorous than that. You can, for any given premise, argue that some nebulous, nondescript "others" will react by XYZ—that doesn't mean it will actually happen and even if it did it adds nothing of substance to the argument you are attempting to reinforce. People gon' people. If you were to carefully word your description in such a manner that reification is absent, no claims that you are objectifying women could possibly stand. Granted, "objectification" may be little more than a mainstream buzzword, but let's try to avoid that? I'm genuinely interested in your idea that idealization = objectification. How you reached that conclusion, and if it's a general principle or only applies to women. Though I have a feeling that it's rather a difference of opinions regarding what idealization is.

So due to planning reasons I had to reschedule leg day to monday. Figured I'd try something different for a change and went with time-volume training ("Zero brains required"? Sold!) for deadlifts and squats, 15 minute blocks each. It definitely allowed for a volume increase in the DL, but I had to lower the squat load to roughly 85% of the weight I would have worked with otherwise after a close call in the second set. "Central" fatigue was way more noticeable, but peripheral fatigue was more manageable throughout than with straight sets. Then did a 3-lap fitball hamstring circuit. Finished with some quad/hamstring machine work to hammer the point home, but in hindsight I'm not sure it was such a good idea. I feel small and weak, and I have a feeling that the day after tomorrow taking a dump will be a task deserving of a medal of honor.

Heh, brings back memories. I tend to prefer in-game cutscenes (even if they sometimes tend to substract from the interactivity aspect...), but some pre-rendered are still pretty cool. After digging through YT for a bit, I've come to the conclusion that it's more a combination of pacing, music and voice acting that makes a cutscene stick to my memory than the graphics themselves... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMvBwqSRZc4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHAPSs5XrSQ Honorable mention to BG2 ending clip.

SWTOR. After capping a Guardian, Sorc and Mara, I think I'm starting to feel the burnout... time to cancel the sub, most likely. The fact that every pug raid requires full 72 gear and advance knowledge of tactics doesn't help either. Now, when's that sweet Wasteland 2 come out...

Huh, I hadn't heard that one. But yeah, setting realistic and sensible goals is probably my #1 priority when I'm working to get somebody in shape. Dispelling myths shouldn't really be part of the job in a healthcare environment, but what are you gonna do... *Thanks! It's good to be back. (fun times trying to recover a password, turns out MS deletes Live accounts if they go unused for a year...) If you think you need this kind of gear for anything that goes beyond just doing some workout to stay healthy and fit you have no idea of fitness or the human body. There is natural bodybuilding and its getting really popular. That was in the context of the original picture... don't get your panties all in a bunch this early in the discussion.

All you need for serious strength training is some weights and a couple of dumbbell bars and one barbell / sz bar. I think I didn't spend more than 200 bucks on all the stuff I've been using for eight years now. Minus the optional bench. The other kind of gear.

Like I said before: So being fit is not about being anal with floss, its about not neglecting your self. This is nothing more than a standard advice that you would give any kid about self hygiene and seeing this as being yelled at speaks to some insecurity more than anything else. It's way more than that—and the understatement showcases why obesity and generally poor health are so prevalent in the west today. Moderate, regular physical activity has been proven to have a dramatic effect on obesity, risk of suffering cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other modern day plagues of the developed world. This just can't be stressed enough. The only reason there isn't a stronger drive to tackle the lack of physical activity in the general population is that it's not a problem that can be medicalized—the medical-industrial complex cannot produce and profit from a "cure" in the traditional sense. http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/prevention/ http://healthyamericans.org/reports/prevention08/ In addition, I estimate that's at least eleventy gajillion less dollars in the pockets of pharma fat cats (pun not intended), so fat chance (ahem) of actually ever seeing a serious push for widespread adoption of healthy physical activity practices. ...or without some serious gear. Bodybuilding is fine, but it has done more harm than good to the public perception of what gyms are (or should be) about. And then there's Michael Bay, too.

Right, and your examples work because there are lots of countries with populations of 10. You give a reason why cultural impact should be evaluated from a relative standpoint as opposed to the actual size of the immigrant communities forming within a given country. Your argument would have some merit if there were countries where the native population was being turned into a minority or close to it by immigrants, but in Europe that hasn't happened for centuries. In reality, strictly both approaches are likely flawed, but who cares? Discounting other factors such as geographic and chronological dispersion, population density, ethnicity compositions, etc is what makes this fun, right? Sigh. The comparison worked just the same because the orders of magnitude considered are the same for both countries. You know that, I know that, and it's clear that the errata is the only way you'll worm your way out of the corner you got into by suggesting that immigration in Sweden is greater than in Spain - an argument that a dream team composed of Cicero, Plato and Gautama wouldn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole. But whatever, I didn't know what I was talking about etc. Address the points now and quit squirming. Uh, a population increase of ~14% in nine years that is attributable to immigration "does not change anything"? We are talking several millions, here, not tens or hundreds of thousands as in Sweden, remember. Forget physics, with such hand-waving skills you should be a prestidigitator! Oh, and I did specifically write increases for 2000-2008. Increase for the year 2000 takes into consideration pop figures for Jan 1st, 2000 and 2001. It's clear it's nine years' worth of increases, and I also made a reference to the economic downturn which in Europe was felt in late 2008-early 2009. Don't be afraid to count on your fingers if you have to. Apparently "will do" doesn't mean what you think it means. Re-read the part where I specifically mention immigrants, not Latin Americans as a whole. Immigration is not homogeneous, and obviously, those less well-off are more likely to migrate.

Yup. The US and Germany are actually good examples of the effects of immigration. France, too. But those don't factor into our argument, because you aren't German, French or a US citizen. Your "thought experiments" are useless in the face of actual evidence of the impact of sizable immigrant communities on the countries that harbor them. Interestingly, while you can find lots of stuff on Indians in the UK and Latinos in the US, it's a bit harder to find anything on Pakistanis in Sweden, for instance. Plato failing you, bro? No, the yearly percent rate is an order of magnitude less. I added one percent symbol too many. That's because the eurostat site handles crude yearly rates and those are not percentages. If you bothered to dig up the numbers from the site and do the math, you'd see that the numbers given don't add up for Sweden either if you take it at face value (upping Sweden's pop to a hefty 13,5M), but you chose not to note that. Of course that would be a good indicator that you aren't following the comparison, don't know where the figures come from -despite having provided the source yourself- or are simply attempting to equivocate. Which one is it? So I'm going to rephrase it so you don't get confused again. A mean yearly rate of 13 (per 1000), or a 14,4 percent increase for the years 2000-2008 (that's nine years' worth of increases to consider, not eight, btw. You want pop figures for Jan 1st, 2000 and 2009), versus a 4,8 (per 1000) average yearly or 4,4 percent increase in the same period, for Spain and Sweden, respectively. Discuss that instead of making a petulant rebuttal based on errata. They speak the official language, but are mostly not descended from people of my country. Read up a bit more on that. Latin American immigrants are overwhelmingly of amerind descent, not Spanish. This is caused by the unequal wealth distribution and pervasive racism that drives people with few resources to leave their native countries. And the "former parts of my country" remark is pretty rich, too. I recommend you read up on the conquest of those countries by Spanish expeditions, and how an empire was carved by dismantling the existing societies and replacing them with an oppressive caste system that became the seed of the eventual revolutions. In short, no, they don't feel Spanish at all. But keep applying POWERFUL THINKING ™ to all these matters, in absence of actual experience dealing with people, it's all you have. Again, your insistence that I "quantify" cultural differences in a short forum post is all the indication anyone should need of actually how little you understand cultural diversity. We were, until you decided to mischaracterize me as a xenophobe because you didn't appreciate my disagreeing with your naïve and arrogant dismissal of cultural distinctiveness and proposal that it should be replaced with "niceness". And I'm the one with issues?

Yep. I'm inclined to believe Turkey's claims. Nope, they would never play dirty.

Well, the problem is your links aren't supposed to prove my arguments, they are supposed to reinforce yours, but they are failing rather miserably at that. All I have to do is point a flaw in your analysis or how you only consider the part of the data that suits your purposes. No matter how you try to spin it, a larger relative amount of refugees or refugee applications does not equal a larger (or even comparable) actual immigration. Asylum applications are not a good measurement of actual immigration, as people fleeing from their countries of origin comprise only a portion of migration movements. From this point on I'm going to snip your posts and remove all chaff. I'm used to seeing verbal diarrhea and empty flourish used to obfuscate and divert attention, so don't bother, I'm just skimming over it and editing it out. The bottom line is that you have failed to produce evidence that demonstrates that the number of asylum requests is proportional and therefore representative of the number of total immigrants. In essence, you haven't established how your refugee argument is relevant. So that's a lot of words to prove... nothing. Irrelevant. Comparing based on percentages is misleading in this context. With a population roughly five times greater, those percentages mean that non EU-residents in Spain account for more than three times the amount of total immigrants in Sweden. Total immigrants in Spain are close to 2/3 of Sweden's total population. But since, clearly, numbers are not your forte, take a look at the pretty colors: http://epp.eurostat....gions,_2008.PNG Play around with the charts generator a bit, between 2000-2008 (before the economic downturn started to discourage immigration), the mean yearly population increase for Spain was around 13%. The corresponding rate for Sweden is about 4,8%. Again, with a much smaller population. The natural growth rate in the same time period is 1,18 for Spain and 0,8 for Sweden which means the increase is squarely a result of mass immigration. That's the actual impact of what we're discussing. Hang on, those aren't "real" immigrants, then? Pretty inelegant how you dismiss them. Not really surprising though, and pretty much in line with the lack of real world knowledge of immigrants and other cultures displayed in the rest of your posts. Those are specifically naturalization figures. Again, a subset of the total immigrant population. Meaningless data is meaningless. I already rebutted this cherry picking fallacy above, it's not worth discussing further. This is the first thing you've written that isn't total bollocks. But then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh? Glad you liked it. It's just a reference to my time eating dirt in an airborne infantry unit, comprised of about 30% immigrants, a few of which I still consider my friends. Figured you'd fix on that, but it's not something worth explaining to a weekend social engineer with newly dropped balls. Next. Oh, no, you don't. You don't get to decide whether I deserve to be labelled a xenophobe. Your presumption that you do, by virtue of evaluating whether a certain amount of immigrant acquaintances is above an arbitrary threshold made up on the fly is sufficient proof that I'm not one is both laughable and pathetic. Funny thing is that, I, by definition, could not simultaneously be a xenophobe and have > 0 immigrant friends. Because your approval means so much to me. This is merely a pastime to me and all I care about is setting the record straight. So far I've only attacked your favorite care bear ideology of happy-times, not immigrants or immigration itself. This subtle nuance is just something else to add to the long list of Things Rostere Does Not Understand. Get cracking.

Rofl. So you live in a country of ~9.5M inhabitants, that is 3rd in asylum requests per capita. Never mind that even within the link you posted, over 66% of said requests were rejected. Wow, you guys are so cosmopolite! I bet you have even seen lots of Africans on TV! Seriously, lol. You fail at statistics (which doesn't bode well for your career as a scientist), you fail at reading, and you Google-Fu is weak. Or maybe you just think everyone but you is really dumb and will readily accept your bull**** without a second thought. I live in a country of 47M of which roughly 12% are immigrants, a majority of which weren't born in the EU. I have friends (*SHOCK!!!*) of Middle Eastern, Maghrebi, South American and East European descent. I have shed more sweat and tears (not blood, fortunately) alongside some of them than your pale armchair theorist ass has in your whole life. So do us both a favor, take your insinuations that I'm a xenophobe and kindly go **** yourself.

Agreed. Euro has created a false sense of prosperity and countries have failed to ramp up competitivity. But that's only a facet of a more complex problem. When a fast-food restaurant gets 1.200 job applications in the first week after opening is announced, I'm finding it hard to believe that further austerity is the solution, though. Sure, there's loads of people living off benefits that are dead weight, and more politicians per capita than anywhere else, but with a ~54% youth unemployment rate -engineers and nurses can't find work, not just unqualified labor- investment cutbacks and tax increases are choking an already struggling working class, the middle class being all but extinct. So when I read foreigners commenting that it's now time to pay for the excesses of the past decades and shed some economic fat, so to speak, I can only shake my head and hope they never get to experience what it feels to spend years unemployed, with no prospect of finding a job in the foreseeable future. And Germany. Germany is the good guy here, right? Well, Germans have been reaping the benefits of a huge export market without tariffs for years, while basically dictating economic policy for the rest of the Eurozone alongside France. They have been staunchly resisting taking action to stabilize the debt crisis affecting weaker Eurozone members, because that increases German political leverage as it pushes countries to either quit the Euro or enter into a bailout deal under terms dictated by... Germany. On the other hand, Germany has for years benefitted from the artificially increased purchasing power of her Eurozone neighbors as a result of fixed interest rates that made loans safer and also an extremely favourable artificial exchange rate. Germany hasn't simply managed her economy well... she has also managed other economies to her advantage - with the acquiescence of local politicians more concerned with securing re-election than ensuring sustainable development and growth. So, yeah. It's a tad more complex than "hard-working Germans have to shoulder the burden of the excesses of their lazy southern neighbors". But it's always easier to drink the Washington Consensus kool-aid than spending a few hours a day reading up on the economy, right?

The situation in Europe is different. In the US, you are in control of your own economic and monetary policy, you just have to find someone who knows what he's doing. In Europe it's a bit more complicated - for years now states have been relinquishing their economic -and political- sovereignty to an opaque and undemocratic bureaucracy that answers to no one and whose overall aims and the interests they obey are difficult to discern. This bureaucracy is hellbent on implanting a policy of austerity and cuts that not only is not helping, it's making things worse. Saddled with ever-increasing debt interests, deprived of the economic and political tools to do something about it at the national level (all power to the Troika!), and forced to adopt failed policies that stifle recovery, the outlook is quite bleak. And this isn't just me being pessimist.