213374U

I think this came up in the Random Video Game News thread. My reaction to it was and still is: No Alpha Protocol? GTFO, PCLamer

I guess it depends on how you define "better". If you cannot find reliable, long-term ways to relieve the strain on resources caused by the constant population increase, then it may be "better" from your "cultural supremacy" perspective, but it certainly is going to make everyone living in that culture miserable. Because life in Europe in the 17th century was on average awesome, right? China in the 60's? I doubt you are arguing from a gene pool standpoint either, because that's the other perspective from which it would be "better". Sure, "European" genes wouldn't have been exported to the Americas and Asia without demographic pressure and displaced many "native" genes but again, this is just the stuff in your DNA and does nothing for, you know, the carriers themselves. You have bought an ideological system where "**** people, go «culture»" is the mantra. You arbitrarily assign more value to a random set of customs than you do to the well-being of people, because reasons. But cultural values much like genes are subject to a sort of selection (the original memes). If they really are useful by themselves or by association with others, they will thrive. Otherwise they will be abandoned and relegated to history books if anything. The only intrinsic value they have is the degree to which they can replace others and become ubiquitous. This mechanism works whether you try to protect it or actively work against it. Good luck selling your ideas to anyone with anything to lose. Which is kind of ironic, considering that the people most willing to take their essence to heart are those you want to keep out.

Back on top of your game, I see. "having kids is a sign of wealth except in the case of the poor in which it isn't". Isn't circular logic just beautiful? Hint: the correlation is between education and contraceptive availability, rather than wealth.

Yeah, it was mentioned in the KS thread when it was launched: My thoughts? It's dead, Jim:

Well, someone thought combat was good enough to warrant a combat-focused dungeon crawler spin-off, but YMMV. I personally enjoyed it once I got the hang of it. Fighter characters are recommended for first playthroughs, btw. You won't be able to talk your way out of every situation, but there's no problem a greataxe to the face won't fix. Graphics are hideous, though.

Yeah, I caught that after I posted. However the bullet point before the chart is clearly about "murder". I'm going to discard the idea that they confused the two, and assume it was just a crafty maneuver to mislead. How very sly.

Yeah, the chart looks like it's manipulated... or maybe it's just garbage. Not surprising. From '90 to '91 murder and nonnegligent manslaughter went up from 9.4 to 9.8 (per 100k pops). From 2014 to 2015, it went from 4.4 to 4.9. EDIT: the chart is about "violent crime" which saw a 29 point increase in the first period, while for the second it just increased 11 points. So while murder/manslaughter increased more, violent crime overall increased less. Lies, damn lies and statistics. It seems Trump can't tell the difference between local and global extrema, and Maher doesn't know what he's talking about when he proclaims the change to be an "aberration or blip". Something something inflection points something something slopes I did watch the video. btw. Hilarious how that idiot claims that hysteria "is working". Morgan's guess about 2016 seems to be right on the money judging from the preliminary data release, but it's obviously an argumentum ex culo, with a 50% chance of being right. Sources: https://ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/preliminary-semiannual-uniform-crime-report-januaryjune-2016/tables/table-3

No, I understand how it was useful in 2002-2003, just not in 1988 when it happened. That'd require some serious foresight in planning for a war there was no apparent reason to launch back then. I'm not totally clear on what you're suggesting. Are you saying that it didn't happen or that it did happen but Iraq wasn't the perpetrator?

Bill Maher can't into basic calculus. ...neither can Trump, for that matter, despite his constant assurances that he "comprehends better than almost anybody". Talking about 2016 is silly because full data for 2016 isn't available yet, btw. This reminded me of why I don't watch TV. People who are supposed to be funny just aren't, and people who very much aren't supposed to be are hysterical.

Not one bit of evidence has ever emerged this is the case, and when people attempted to fact check those making this accusation once upon a time, they met a brick wall. 'tis more than likely a myth good sir. Even leaving the evidence thing aside, why would they make up something like this? In 1988, the US was still supporting Iraq against revolutionary Iran.

That's true. But te question has to be WHY such things can happen and are accepted. Which brings us pretty quickly to failed interventions. Err... not across the board. Saddam was gassing Kurds even before Kuwait. Shia and Sunni Muslims have been murdering each other over religious dogma since Muhammad kicked the bucket. It's just that brutality pre-war was confined internally and we didn't have to clean up. That being said, Western interventions didn't exactly help the case of progressive Islamic scholars arguing for "separation of mosque and state" and liberalization, that's for sure. I guess if John Locke had had a JDAM dropped on his head, we might not enjoy some of the freedoms we do today.

Minus fixpacks, BGT/Tutu, ToBEx mods*, and Widescreen, naturally. *dammit Beamdog, WHY U NO INCLUDE FACESTAB?!

Hey, congrats. I don't think my 16M group ever made it past Titan 6. The headless chicken dance is amusing for a while, but the repair costs get old fast. So like I heard they are making a new raid... hahaha

The "Feminism in one country" wing of the Euroleft strikes again. Bonus points for being seated next to corrupt kleptocrat extraordinaire Mr. Cañete. Meanwhile at home, female cops force big dudes to take roid tests. Really, it's no wonder people either stay at home or vote for Le Pen, Wilders and Hofer. Great job, guys.

IIRC any conspicuous symbols are banned, crosses included -- if there were any. There are no crosses in French schools AFAIK.

To be honest: not so much. But I haven't kept up with IE mod development for more than a year, so maybe it picked up. The guy to ask would be CoM_Solaufein, but I haven't seen him for a while. Can you mods like @page each other or something? Of course, if you're comfortable with the originals and have no interest in recent mods or the QoL improvements, then yes, there's little reason to pick up the EEs, I guess. The new content alone —Dragonspear notwithstanding— doesn't warrant it. I also respect boycotting the dev due to their business model or practices — I do it myself with other devs. The UI complaints are subjective, though. As I said, I barely noticed any changes. And at any rate, the new UI, ugly as it may be, IS an improvement over BG1's. Installing a ton of mods and BGT/BP isn't trivial. @Bart: well, the Beamdog modding subforum is pretty active... for a 15+ year old modding community. Also staples like Spell/Item Revisions were being updated for the EEs, and Kit Revisions hadn't been totally abandoned. edit: seriously, this board's autoformatting is atrocious. Kill it with fire!

It is in fact if you enjoy playing around with mods that the EEs should appeal more to you. Off the top of my head, they have retooled a lot of stuff and changed things that were hardcoded into ini or 2da toggles and parameters, plus changed how certain effects were handled to make them more mod-friendly (i.e. contingency). Most, if not all, mod development is now done with the EEs in mind. The bugfixing goes beyond what the Fixpack and Tweakpack did, at this point. If you want a comprehensive list of changes, take a look here. The widescreen/high res options are better IMO than what the Widescreen mod managed. Not trying to sell you on the game, but the bad rep it earned because of the state it was released in is, at this point, unwarranted. At least from a technical standpoint. And if mods are of no interest to you, the game offers quicker loading times, support for high resolutions and bugfixing without resorting to third-party content.

With all the hate for the EEs around here I figured I'd crawl out of the woodwork and say something nice about them. While it's true that some older mods don't work, most do, from what I remember. They have also done a ton of bugfixing and they are currently in a more polished state than the originals. They've also introduced some sweet optional exe changes (concentration checks!) and incorporated most ToBEX functions. The additional content is hit and miss. Some of it is pretty bad, and some is actually pretty good (Dorn's ToB quest was awesome) so... in line with the originals, I guess. The UI has also been changed, I personally barely noticed. And of course if you want to play Siege of Dragonspear, you need the EEs. It was a **** move on their part to remove the originals from GOG as standalones, but since I got them for free as an EE owner when they were bundled, I can't complain too much.

Probably the sidebar with all the trashy reality TV broads. I know it's why I do.

Yeah, I sometimes went into exams like that. I knew the "essence" well enough, but was fuzzy on the details (i.e. I hadn't done my homework). In the rare event that I passed, it was due to dumb luck, and not because I deserved it. The thing is that Trump has people working for him full-time to do the homework, if he'll let them, and provided that he can keep his mouth shut for just long enough. There's this American saying... "the devil is in the detail". You're wrong about computers, btw.

Ah, thanks. Should have guessed something along those lines. Fun times.

Why "so-called"?

So Cayne, a sci-fi adventure horror game set in the STASIS universe, is out on GOG for free. Nope, I haven't played either Cayne or STASIS. BUT:

Right. So concrete rewards for doing your best (I guess the PASS bar is simply higher), and for which there are no shortcuts. On the other hand, a promise to put you to work digging ditches in the 'stan or some other hellhole for a few years if you slack off. I guess that's certainly motivational, especially if you compare it to the tools teachers have available in schools. Living in commie Yurop, good uni education was neither a reward for doing well in the military, nor particularly unaffordable as a civilian (back then at least -- tuition has increased 50 to 100% in about ten years), so the perspective is completely different. Thanks.

How so? Honest question. I know, different countries and cultural differences and all, but overall I found my time in uniform *extremely* demotivating. And the most valuable lesson I learned is maybe... "I really ****ing hate long runs".