Gorth

Yeah, who does Cameron think he is? This is Western "Democracies", don't ever make the mistake of listening to the people or worse, enact the will of the people, they might just start getting all the wrong ideas.

Mate... I sometimes wonder if we live in the same world? There is no such thing as "independent" media. Even the BBC which is probably less bad than most have a bias. The only thing I would trust them to report truthfully and objectively is she soccer results after the final whistly. You want to know the truth, you need to do your own digging for it. Don't ever trust "truths" served to you by others. It's just, most people don't care. It's easier to whinge about the state of things than taking responsibility for your own life.

The world is getting taller... just not at the same rate. How humans have changed in height in the last 100 years This paragraph made me laugh a bit: "Meanwhile, Americans aren't quite as tall compared with the rest of the world anymore. A century ago, American men ranked as the third tallest in the world, standing at 171 centimeters (5 feet 7 inches). Now, they place as the 37th, with an average of 177 centimeters (5 feet 10 inches). Similarly, American women had ranked as the fourth tallest in the world at 159 centimeters (5 feet 3 inches). Now, they stand as the 42nd tallest in the world with an average of 163.5 centimeters (5 feet 4 inches). While Americans didn't experience big gains in height, their body mass index "increased a great deal," the report found."

Now I feel like playing TR I-III again... I think I got them all on my GOG account

Erdogans problem was, the Reichstag was too far away to set on fire, so he had to create domestic problems to shore up the flagging voter numbers. First goading the Kurds into a new conflict to give people something to rally about and when not enough, create his own little "Cuba Crisis" getting within an inch of regular war with Russia (or at least letting people linger in the that belief). Everyone getting all riled up and not asking the right questions while he is turning Ataturks vision of a secular, democratic state into a new Iraq and making himself the new Saddam Hussein. Just my opinion of course

Erdogan wants to go one step further and introduce the death penalty. Makes it a lot easier to get rid of all opposition to his plans for an all powerful executive presidency. He even built the palace where he plans to spend the rest of his days...

Nationalism (aka "patriotism"). IRA and like minded groups taking up arms killed more than 3600 people (and injured 40000). That's roughly all the casualties from Madrid, Paris, London, the Twin Towers in New York and lastly Nice together? Add to that all the left and right wing extremist attacks like the west German RAF, Italian Red Brigades, ETA in Spain, Libyan state sponsored terror attacks etc. the religiously motivated casualties are not as overwhelming by comparison as I think you think.

UK/US relations are going to be interesting regardless who wins... some funny quotes from CNN attributed to the new UK foreign secretary: On Hillary Clinton - “She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital” Regarding Trump: "'The only reason I wouldn't visit some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump" Oh, and a quip about current incumbent Barak Obama: "Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender" Yeah, with friends like these I don't envy the diplomats who have to gloss over some of those things being said.

Now you've made me genuinely curious... who are these many other EU countries? We can rule out France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, just guessing now, a lot of the eastern European EU countries, Spain, Greece, Sweden. No idea what things are like in Italy, Portugal or Austria (or the Swiss for that matter) are doing. In the UK, it's a mixed bag, more a problem between cultural divides than ethnic divides (those groups who adopted the UK way of life seems to be thriving well enough). Edit to add: What you have in several of the countries I listed above is host countries trapped between a rock and a hard place. Immigrants who seems militantly adverse to adjusting to their new host country's values and the host country having to chose between either rejecting immigrants (being branded as all kinds of inhuman), force immigrants to embrace new values (effectively giving up core parts of old values/cultures and being labelled cultural fascists), try to turn a blind eye in the name of political correctness and watch blood run in the streets.

The benefit of getting around a bit... I paid the 360AUD the other day and lodged a 'Returning Resident' visa application with the Australian Immigration authorities. Got the Visa confirmation in the mail today (just so I can print out my own copy, the border authorities have it all electronically linked to my passport number). I got 5 years now to make up my mind if I want to go back. Interesting times.

My take on Clinton and Trump... Disclaimer: Yes, I'm an "outsider" so my stake in this is not domestic US politics, but anything that affects foreign relations, international stability and world economy. Too lazy to do a search, but I'm fairly sure one of my early posts compared Trump to Berlusconi. Both populist politicians appealing to lowest common denominator. Only difference is/was, Berlusconi literally owned the Italian media, so didn't have to compete with other candidates for primetime. Trump had to construct (I suspect deliberately, because he isn't that stupid) outrageous statements to get the masses moving and flocking to him. In essence, he staged a "media coup". What he really wants I've got no idea. Clinton on the other hand gives me goose bumps. I've never seen such a cold hearted, manipulating schemer before. I suspect she would do *anything*, legit or underhanded for power and cling on to it to the point of trying to make the title either hereditary or extend the limits from two terms to the end of her life expectancy. If the white house doesn't want her, I'm sure the CIA would have room for her in their ranks. Completely devoid of morality. In good old D&D terms, for me Trump and Clinton are Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Evil respectively

I suspect a EU army would mostly be to protect market shares abroad and discourage members from invoking article 50

I *think* the idea with the lockboxes is, the stuff you take out of them counts as 'bound', encouraging people to collect complete sets and pay the cartel coins to unlock them (what a surprise!!!). Problem is, they had fixed it in the past so it didn't have to be on the same toon, just the same legacy. I.e. Gorth could have the pants and Gort's alt could have the jacket and together they would trigger it in the collections for unlock purchase if that was a complete set combined. It seems to be broken at the moment.

Haha, yeah. Blue chicks are cool indeed. I had a Chiss operative already, but since I needed to create an Imperial toon despite not needing anyone (other than for the event) I went with a blue madness sorceress. Aptly name 'Blue Madness' (goes to show how much effort I put into *that* character). It was a lot easier to chose a Republic toon, as I had a level 22 Commando healer I was in the progress of levelling up for endgame, so he got deleted and recreated as an exact copy, right down to the name (and is now about the level he used to be). Say hello to the future Major Kolto Pack (once 'Kolto Pack' gets his Major title). The bugs in this game gets more and more bizarre. A smuggler who has completed chapter ix ran into a nake Aric Jorgan and another character inside my stronghold, both of them standing next to a doorway. That was creepy (none of them are smuggler companion or potential recruits at this point in the KoftE story) Tried something new yesterday on my merc girl... getting oneshot while at full health by the first Rancor boss in HM KP. 79k hitpoints? Not a problem when the rancor hits you with a 153k swipe attack (his basic attack)

They would feel right at home in the US if the system there produces a King George III as ruler...

Moved to the gaming section as it's more likely to get seen here by anyone who may know

It's an anti-bot measure. The first handful posts needs manual approval and new people can only queue 5 posts. After that, people can create threads and posts once we are convinced it's a real human

To quote myself from the previous page, it's really a "non event" for old timers in the game. Odds are, you know the existing class missions inside out already and the loot is completely irrelevant. Of course, being a hypocrite, I still created two new alts (one imp, one pub) just to check out what the new companion is about. I justify it to myself with one of them replacing a level 15 healer commando that i was in the process of leveling up for operations anyway, so I deleted him and recreated him. At least I didn't have to wait 3 hours for Esseles to pop this time, got 2 pops with a max wait of 5 minutes each and everyone having done it before, the run took 25 minutes each time. At least that was a bit of silverlining on the dark skies of the end game content horizon. Having a blast reading some of the butt hurt on the forums. It's hilarious how many people are whinging about heroics credits rewards being reduced to get closer to pre-4.0 levels. You would think people didn't have even the most basic grasp of economics. Credits flowing into the game in huge quantities from gold farmers and heroics. Guess which problem they fix first, the easy one to fix. It's like the new players have absolutely no idea of how people made credits before 4.0 (hint: weeklies and dailies, which incidentally still exists, but no, too much work and doesn't give you a million credits a day for 45 minutes of effort). Giving ridiculous payout for heroics was probabluy the brainchild of the same brigt person who thought giving the best gear in the game from the easiest ops was a great idea, lets remove any motivation for doing something other than highlighted HM and FP ops

A new giant centipede has been discovered — also it can swim If it somehow survvives the hot water, odds are, evolution will also make its offspring heat resistant

Not exactly "elderly", but during my teenage years, I had a few half-uncles (mothers half-brothers), one of which was a heroin addict. Long story short, for a short time, my parents were the legal guardians after the home they stayed in got closed by the police after it came you that the kids were both sexually abused, subjected to physical torture of the kind you see in horror movies (held down in bath tabs with icy cold waters to the point of drowning etc.). They ended up there in the first place after their mother died from cancer and their father committed suicide shortly after, so off to a bad start in life. In any case, my parents trieed their best to take in another few kids besides their own and it was just a task too big for what was then very young parents. When the oldest of them got the withdrawal symptons, he would run off to the local pushers and get his "fix". We usually knew which geneneral area to comb through the hangouts of needle users at the time. Under bridges, abandoned backyards, public toilets (this was the 80's train stations and similar places didn't have controlled access to their toilets). Few things beat kicking your way through white, clammy corpses lying on the ground, blood having trickled from ruptured veins, covered in vomit and an all penetrating smell of old urine and feces. I still remember touching the "flesh" of my relative when hoisting him uup and started dragging him out into the open and back home. Incredibly, he lived for another few decades before dying from OD (I suspect he lived so long because he spent most of that time in jail). Still, it leaves an impression on a 15 year old when you see that much human misery up close and I still can't stand being around "bodily fluids", so no desensitizing there Edit to add: I seem to remember those "homes" are called orphanages in English.

They do have some funny traditions in the UK Parliament... The Commons Chamber "It also remains the case that in the United Kingdom MPs can only transfer their allegiance from government to opposition, or vice versa, by crossing the floor in plain view. During debates, members speaking on opposing sides are also not meant to step over the red lines on the carpet, which are said to equal two sword lengths." (Apparently they used to carry swords for debating in the past)

What, you mean that they actually had to get and do something??? Sorry, no sympathy from this old grognard

Bought some some stuff for my laptop, being tired of using the keyboard and relatively small monitor (most of my belongings are still in storage in Germany). Got a mechanical keyboard (of course) and a nice medium sized monitor with 2560x1440 resolution. Got it home, unboxed, set up and... only came with full sized HDMI (and DVI, neither of which is on my laptop) cables. Ah well, no biggie, went down to a local electronics store and asked for a mini-HDMI adapter, got it back home and lo and behold, the guy in the store had given me a mini-HDMI to C (whatever 'C' is, it sure isn't something my laptop has). Ah well, next time I'll read what it says on the packaging first rather than taking someones word for it I still need to find an adaptor though, the monitor currently gathering dust.