Enoch

This is true. Human digestive systems get used to a particular blend of protiens, lipids, carbs, fiber, etc. Sudden shifts in the mix of inputs can make for a bumpy transition. I should clarify-- I didn't mean to imply that one particular of foods blend was optimal or correct. Only that one's body gets used to what a person feeds it, and shifting eating practices quickly often makes for transitional difficulties. This is true even when shifting to a diet that is generally more healthy.

This is true. Human digestive systems get used to a particular blend of protiens, lipids, carbs, fiber, etc. Sudden shifts in the mix of inputs can make for a bumpy transition.

As far as I know: No. No. I have no idea what this means. Light level is one of the factors that influence the effectiveness of your stealth skill. (Along with your gear, noise level, and skillpoint invesment) No. Yes. Yes. They have talked about the 'noise generator' gadget, and other items (e.g., planted explosives) can be used to draw off guards as well. Remains to be seen. They claim to have paid attention to make sure that steath-based character builds can get through all the levels in a satisfying manner, and it is supposedly possible (although quite difficult) to complete the game with a zero body count. Not sure if this satisfies your definition of "ghost," though. If you get into melee range against an enemy who hasn't detected you, you have the option of a non-lethal takedown. There may also be some non-lethal firearm options (tranquilizer rounds? rubber bullets?), but I don't recall whether this has been confirmed or not. I also don't know whether enemies defeated in hand-to-hand combat end up dead or simply incapacitated. Sniper rifles can't be acquired and carried into a mission like you can a pistol or assault rifle. But I seem to recall some hints regarding a mission or two where you can use one within that level (probably similar to the rocket launchers in the recent video-- something found in the level to be used for a specific purpose). You can also attach a scope to an assault rifle and use it for medium-range sniping. In the levels where gameplay videos have been released, this seems like a pretty effective tactic.

Just to be clear, Squaddies have perfect accuracy, right? So buying the "Assault Rifle Accuracy" upgrade has no effect if you're playing a Shep who can't use ARs?

Are you saying that freely available pornography hasn't furthered the cause of world peace?

That x-ray is indeed wicked. Also, you are insane.

PC Gamer Interview

I didn't bring Legion to see him, but I did try to inform him that the Geth aren't all psychotic. He gave me a quick 'keep your mouth shut, the Council thinks you're insane enough already' talk.

The 'flash-forward to cafe chat with antagonist' is an interesting choice. It could be a neat way to preview the long-term consequences of certain in-mission decisions, and to pull the player out of their immediate gameplay and character-building concerns and get them focused on the longer arc of the storyline. But it could also feel forced; a bit too much like a "Wonder Years"-style retrospective voiceover narration. Depends on the exectution and writing. (The rather flat obvious segue in the video-- "I'm more interested in what you did next"-- is what I'd like to see less of.) The flashback potential is probably more exciting, though. Get glimpses of Thorton before his recruitment into AP or his selection for this mission, see why/how the powers that be selected him, and hopefully have a nice revelation or two that ties Mike's past into the whole global conspiracy angle to give Mike a more personal stake in the action. Parts of games that fill the player in on surprising elements in the Character's backstory often make for the best moments (e.g., Torment, Both KotORs, The Longest Journey).

The "Cryo ammo working on barriers" thing is news to me. Is that mentioned at all in the documentation?

I'm playing an infiltrator now, and enjoying it. AI Hacking is a dump skill-- it's pretty pointless, as Disruptor Ammo owns any mechs you fight, anyway. I also haven't put any points in Cryo ammo, either, but that's mostly because I'm playing on Hardcore, where pretty much everything has some protective ability or another, rendering Cryo attacks pretty impotent. Infiltrator is all about zoom slowdown headshots with sniper rifles. (Note: It's not a class to play if you don't want to spend time scrounging for heatsinks. Those SR shots have to be rationed carefully.) The Cloak gives a damage boost, but in my experience it's more useful for defense (running away when a charging Krogan flanks you, for instance). It's a nice choice for a second character because you can pick Warp Ammo as your bonus skill at character creation. Base Infiltrators have Incinerate to deal with Armor and Disruptor Ammo to deal with Shields, but no special advantage to use against Barriers. Now, on the default difficulty, Barriers are pretty rare so that's not a big problem. But higher up, every single Collector has one, so getting Warp ammo early is helpful. (Reave is also an option for this role, but it's largely redundant with Incinerate.) Sentinel was my first run (on default difficulty). It doesn't have any "Bwahahahahaha" powers, but, between Warp, Overload, and Throw, it does have a power for every occasion.

Collapse of the Weimar led to the rise of a charismatic strongman, but it did not necessarily dictate that said strongman would try to conquer all of Europe. It's what ended up happening, but the aggressive militarism that came with Nazi rule had sources other than simply economic collapse.

Necessary, but not sufficient. Economic factors were a necessary element in the rise of Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini, but they weren't sufficient in themselves to bring about their alliance and war of aggression on the rest of the world.

I really dislike the semi-auto Viper sniper rifle. The first one you get-- the Mantis-- has very limited ammo, but if I've been keeping up on upgrades, my Infiltrator can use every single one of those rounds to take down a standard enemy mook with a single slo-mo headshot. Get him near the crosshairs, zoom, knock 'em out with one click in slow-motion, and you never have to worry about that dude again. (Even 1 layer of barrier/shield/armor protection isn't enough to prevent a 1-shot kill on a basic enemy-- on Hardcore, I don't even seem to need the damage bonus from Cloaking.) The Viper purports to be an upgrade on this, and has a 12-shot magazine and much larger overall ammo capacity, but it takes at least 4 shots to do the damage that the Mantis does in one. You get less out of the Cloak benefit (a % boost to the first shot), you expose yourself to more enemy fire, and I'm not good enough to get a bunch of headshots in before the slo-mo timer runs out, after which I generally either aim for the torso or miss 2/3rds of the time. Maybe it's more useful for Soldiers who don't get the zoom slowdown, but I don't see it as an upgrade at all for my character. Yes, I am counting down the minutes until I can go get the Widow. (I've only done 2 post-Horizon missions so far-- recruiting Tali and Thane.)

I don't disagree with what Calax is saying. The case depends almost entirely on the contents of their employment agreements, as well as the alleged Memorandum of Understanding that modified it. In an initial complaint, you're not required to present all of the evidence with specificity (with a few exceptions)-- you just have to establish that, if every fact you allege is true, the defendant would be liable to pay some damages. And in the place of hard evidence (like quoted language from their agreements) West and Zampella's attorneys (a well regarded firm, by the way) went for inflammatory language and PR spin. (Which can be useful if you're trying to negotiate a settlement) For example, it wouldn't surprise me if this alleged MOU fell short of a fully formalized contract modification. (Oral agreement? Emails back and forth promising to take care of them if they stuck around?) And jurisdictions are divided on the details of when and how a subsequent written or oral agreement can alter a pre-existing written contract, and whether standard-form 'integration clauses' have any effect in these situations. All this kind of stuff won't start to come out until the parties start getting to the discovery phase-- holding depositions, sending document requests to each other, etc.

Countries have defaulted on debts in the past. It has the effects you might imagine: making it very difficult/expensive to borrow in the future, and making the value of the currency take a nosedive. (This latter bit hasn't been tested in a common currency like the Euro, but the weakness that it has been showing lately is largely because of the perceived weakness of the PIIG countries, so some negative effect from a default would seem likely.)

That's very different from Mako combat. Mako combat was all about engaging the enemy at extreme range, so that you could abuse the fact that Mako shells fired at lightspeed, while all opponent weapons were slow and easily dodgeable. Although that clip doesn't give one a sense of the range of the Hammerhead's cannon, your shots now take time to reach their targets, and both your shots and the enemies have a limited tracking function (not unlike the base game's rocket launcher), eliminating the old "fire, then roll backwards 10 feet" basic Mako tactic. Looks to me like the primary M.O. is to fire on enemies while maneuvering at speed to avoid their fire.

Well, the Ivies are an exception in that they are very good with the need-based aid if can you actually get in. And, depending on the field you go into, a big name school on your resume can certainly help. (Although, in my experience, this is more the case with graduate and professional schools-- big I-banks only really recruit from a short list of B-schools; the same with the big white-shoe law firms and the top law schools; if you're going academia, the prestige of the institution granting your PhD matters quite a bit. Good performance at a decent public undergrad, followed by a top-flight grad program is probably the most cost effective strategy in fields like that, if you can swing it.) I think Krook is stretching a bit by mentioning Rowan (which I remember mostly as the host location for HS band competitions), but a high-profile public university (i.e., one that is known of outside the state for something other than football or basketball) like Rutgers or Maryland or any of the big VA publics can get you 90% of what you get out of an Ivy undergrad at a fraction of the cost. I imagine that Rutgers is great for pharma stuff largely because so many big pharmaceutical companies are based nearby in north Jersey. I'm sure that there is a lot of cooperation with the local industry on research grants and such, and the profs will have a lot of connections to get their favorite students the right internships, interviews, etc. (Advice: whatever area you end up concentrating in, get tight with the faculty and staff who run that department. That's where you'll get the good advice and connections, rather than from the deans or careers services or alumni networks.)

Legal-minded rundown of the complaint filed by West & Zampella

Why can't they hold GDC in Washington, DC? It even rhymes! (Then again, were I there, they'd probably put a console gamepad in my hands, and I'd spend the bulk of my allotted time trying to successfully walk through a door without pirouetting into the corner. I don't have the greatest of track records with thumbsticks.)

The difference being that the Deutchmark was not the primary reserve currency for pretty much the entire world. International markets back then could sell their DMs and buy Pounds or Francs or Lira or Dollars or whatever. People (and central banks) holding Dollars today don't have those same options-- the Eurozone has countries at the brink of default; the Brits and Japanese are in a similarly tight fiscal situation; etc. That's essentially the U.S.'s trump card-- even if inflation starts to hit hard, it's going to be at least as bad in the other major world economies, and currency/debt holders are still going to consider the Dollar the safest place to be. The big flaw in the mercantilist game that China has been playing is the fiat currency controlled by the country that is the primary market for their goods. Nothing is certain, but the most likely outcome I see is a world economy in 20 years where the dollar is worth 30 cents, and everything else is worth 15 cents. It has little to do with any one politician or party's policies-- all the increased scrutiny of the Fed is going to lead to it quietly shifting its priorities away from supporting the financial industry and the international economy, and more into focusing on the national interests of the United States. Inflation essentially shifts the burden of existing debt away from debtors and onto anyone who holds a positive balance of that currency. And when the US has a large debt denominated in Dollars, with a substantial portion of the holders of Dollars (and the holders of that US debt) abroad, gradual-but-consistent inflation presents an opportunity to let foreigners absorb a decent hunk of the cost of that debt. I also suspect a round of de-liberalization of international trade over the next decade, which I think will hurt other nations more than it does the US. (Indeed, it would be a spur to reducting the % of the economy derived from consumer spending, which, long-term, is a healthier place to be.) As for where I put my money; I've got funds in one of the more conservative lifecycle funds of the Federal Thrift Savings Plan (essentially a 401K for feds). The rest goes towards my and the wife's student loan debt. I'm not very good at trusting strangers to play with my money, so unless I've done enough research on a company that I don't consider them strangers, I prefer to stay away.

Tali's Shepard-worship does make some sense-- her whole life is a series of difficult situations she has gotten herself into, followed by Shepard bailing her out: She gets in trouble with Fist on the Citadel; Shep rescues her. She needs to find something great for her pilgrimage; Shep delivers. She goes looking for the missing Quarian on Freedom's Progress; her team gets cut down and Shep finishes the job. She goes off to WeirdSunlightWorld, loses most of her escort and gets trapped by Geth; Shep gets her out. Her dad's experiments go nuts and the Admiralty wants to blame her; Shep fixes it. She tries to assert her independence over the first half of ME2 (mostly because of doubts about Cerberus), but she keeps falling into trouble that only Shepard can get her out of. It's hardly surprising that she views Shep with respect-bordering-on-awe.

That must have been a tough decision for you, Krookster. Enjoy college life! Yeah it's been a good run though. I mean, Rutgers is the birthplace of Ultimate Frisbee so there's always that... Hey! My dad is a Rutgers alum. You can get a damn fine education there, and although it has some obvious drawbacks its location (spread across a not-particularly-nice area in New Brunswick) and in its size (lots of options, but if you don't seek out whatever guidance you need on your own initiative, you're probably not going to get it), it's still a fantastic value, especially for NJ residents. So, congratulations and all that. Any idea of what you plan on studying?

If a snack cake lasted for two centuries I'd be really wary about its contents. "Silly customer! You cannot hurt a Twinkie!"

Private citizens and companies. Ever buy a savings bond? The government owes you money. Also, in the case of reserve currencies like the Dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and Pound), even the indebted countries hold what reserves they have in the form of US/Euro/British debt.