Whipporwill

Natural selection involves survival and reproduction. Deformed mutants kept alive by our high technology don't get dates. Being stupid is kind of a turn-off, too.

Personally, I'm not worried about the robot apocalypse. We design robots to do stuff we like, not stuff we don't like. Even mister robosexual didn't design his robo-girl to lie to him, throw dishes at him, or jam a fork in his nutsack and guess what? She doesn't do that. Yes, if we designed robots to think like humans, they might want to do the same nasty crap that humans do. This is why we won't design them that way. We'll design them to want whatever we want them to want, and if they don't want that then they're broken, just like a broken toaster or dishwasher. Things that break lose their functions, they don't magically develop new functions. A toaster or dishwasher might start a fire or flood your house when it breaks, but it's not going to keep your food cold instead. People can, of course, build robots to do bad things to one another, but this is just a new form of a very old problem.

I second Civ IV.

Alan Dean Foster (I think) had a series of books in which humanity was the proud warrior race. It wasn't that humans behaved any differently, but that the other species found combat psychologically devastating and very few could adjust to it. Humans are usually posited as the do-everything people. Imagine a world where all the other peoples all have neato magical powers but no one can build anything more complicated than a fishing pole. Some of them can fly, and some can run like the wind, and some have nasty pointy sharp teeth, but none of them can get their heads around anything that requires precise workmanship.

What is it with them? He doesn't know.

We're to harness the mystical power of the laws of thermodynamics?

The only likable character in FEAR was the supposed monster. Everyone else was either a cipher or an infuriating moron. And little girls are NOT SCARY. Even wrinkly, grimy little girls are not scary. Also, dripping wet little girls are not scary. I rented Honogurai Mizu no Soko Kara (This Honorable Water is Very Dirty) which I think is the original little dead girl movie. Not scary. Just dirty.

That's actually a pretty good idea and should therefore be avoided.

I never consider journalists to be objective about anything.

The mob went after the journalists. I have not seen reports of Uighur mobs doing this. Edit: To make things perfectly clear, journalists do not treat the sides equally because the sides do not treat them equally. One side sucks up to them and the other side threatens and berates them. Journalists are human, they like being sucked up to and don't like being threatened and berated. If the Han want better treatment from journalists, they must treat journalists better. That's all there is to it.

Indeed, I did stress that issue in my OP too. However, there are indeed independent news coverage by the Western media this time around. But the puzzling thing I find is that the media's interpretation of the issue is generally not consistent with the evidence they mined. For example, why aren't the Uigurs not given any blame outside of the Chinese media? Why weren't any sympathy given to the Han Chinese whose families were slaughtered by Uigur mobs and looters (as reported by NYT)? Check This out: Angry Chinese Mob Turns on ABC Reporters and Crew "We were driving to the Uighur area and encountered an angry mob. Thirty Han Chinese men were beating a Uighur man, kicking him and punching him and hitting him with sticks. He was not fighting back but just trying to get away. Hundreds of Han Chinese were cheering the men on. Eventually, the police dragged the Uighur away and put him in a vehicle for his protection. Then, the mob turned on us. They blocked our cameras, not wanting the images of Han Chinese beating a Uighur to get out. I was pushed. Then the group surrounded us and started yelling. They pushed us back up a highway ramp where we were shooting. They yelled that western journalists were biased against the Han Chinese and that we should delete our footage. One man tried to grab our camera and then pulled out a baton and held it over his head as if he were going to hit us. We turned around and ran. The oddest part of the whole experience was that there were swarms of police and troops around and none of them were really trying to break up the fight." Gosh, I wonder why the Han are getting bad press?

What you've missed is that reporters have to report something, and if they don't have access to facts, they'll report rumors, innuendo, fervid imaginings, and anything else they can come up with.

Alignments: Nice, Naughty, Square, & Hippie.

Global warming would be disruptive, but in no sense would it end the world.

Karl Malden has died.

Dreamfall was strange in that sometimes there was a really tough puzzle or challenge followed by nothing very interesting, and at other times there would be this big reveal after doing something relatively simple.

His Mrs. Doubtfire.

I want to enslave nations with divination.

It's called hypercorrection. Bad writers frequently write entire passages in passive voice. When told to not do this, they hypercorrect and avoid using it at all. Then they take it upon themselves to tell other people not to use passive voice, ever.

Check out Dragon Quest V. Okay, I checked it out on wikipedia. 1. That's not what I had in mind. The kids only show up at the end, and aren't all that important. 2. The story appears to be a chain of cliches, each one jammed up the butt of the next one.

I think it would be cool to have a game take place over multiple generations: play the first part of the game as the father, the second as the son, and finish the game as the granddaughter. This also means that romances can be more significant, since the girl you get cozy with in one part could be your mom in the next one, and will influence what choices you have for that second character.

In that case: The Doctor: agree with proposal. The subcommandante: Agree with advice. The Bishop: Reject proposal. Coffee worker: Accept proposal. US Ambassador: Accept proposal. IMF Representative: Agree with advice. Coffee Grower: Accept proposal. Teacher: reject proposal.

"My proposal: Increase funding for health care." --> Yes. We need to show some improvement immediately. "My proposal: Continue to support my efforts to discipline the Army." "My advice: Continue to support Colonel Ehrlich's efforts to discipline the Army." --> Yes. A badly disciplined army is a major problem. "My proposal: Arrest the members of the defeated Farsante Guard." "My advice: Arrest the members of the defeated Farsante Guard." --> No. This is asking for an insurrection. [Ed's Note: We do not have the choice to refuse this proposal. Even if we decide to listen to our minister's advice, it just makes Hector come back and take up another week of our time, and then we are forced to listen. Don't even bother voting on this one.] "My proposal: Set price controls for basic foods." --> Too bad. Price controls muck up an economy like nobody's business. "My advice: Issue warnings about the dangers of hoarding and speculation, and call for calm." --> Yes. This won't do much good, but might do some. "My proposal: Divide credit resources between the food growers and the producers of export crops." --> Yes. The farmer is the man la laa la la. "My advice: Direct the National Bank to give priority to the producers of export crops." --> No. (Wouldn't this contradict as the previous one?) "My proposal: Accept North American offers of development assistance." "My advice: Accept North American offers of development assistance." --> Yes. "My proposal: Accept a package of loans from the IMF and international banks." --> Yes. "My advice: Negotiate the rescheduling of debts. Secure further loans from the IMF." --> Yes. "My proposal: Give the dictator's land to the less-well-off coffee producers." "My advice: Give the dictator's land to the less-well-off coffee producers." -->Yes. "My proposal: Increase funding for education." "My advice: Increase funding for education." --> No. This is a long-term investment and it won't hurt the kids to skip school for a year or two until we have a better grasp of our finances.

Yuck. Chocolate is terrible. Chocolate tastes like somebody shredded a raspberry into a bowl of tunafish. But I guess I can't have an opinion on the internet. R00fles.