Gorth

Used to watch the German dubbed version as a kid. Aweseome

Rabid opossums has nothing on drop bears... Besides I hate those noisy little buggers. If you thought cat fighting was bad, try getting sleep while territorial opossums slug it out

Low taxes, cheap petrol, AC/DC, poisonous spiders, poisonous snakes, poisonous jellyfish, poisonous platypus, swimming with sharks, crocodile dodging, whale watching, jungles, deserts, mountains, coral reefs, you get the picture...

My mocking it the stuff of legends. It has its roots in reality. Just add cynicism and stir If I should put it in a less mocking way (not sure if that is any better), I would say there is a large group of people out there who are easily and willingly manipulated by business men, who are experts in the field of manipulating large groups of easily and willingly manipulated people. I resent being manipulated. I pity people who are easily manipulated. I roll my eyes at people who live their lives on facebook because they like it better than The Real World ® and I despair at the thought of the masses that spend months, sometimes years of their lives living in MMO's, sometimes spending real money to buy MMO goods in virtual stores from unscrupulous merchants preying on them. Maybe it is because I really just am a grumpy old bastard that prefers to stare down Life in a contest of wills (and punch it in it's face if it doesn't get out of my way). The odd daydream is nice, but not a substitute for living. So yeah, I sometimes indulge in mocking those I think spend much too time escaping into dream worlds as opposed to the fun of a challenge that needs overcoming or a bit of virtual exploration. That would be one of my vices then.

Sweden is socialist territory in case you hadn't noticed. Management suggests what works needs to be done to the workers representative committee, then discuss whether or not they want to do it. If they agree, they'll take it to the general assembly meeting where all workers get to vote for or against

Sums up my own thoughts pretty well. Although I've only ever played the original Civilization (no roman numeral). Maybe I'm just the unforgiving kind

Your polls is flawed. Market analysis reveals that the largest disposable income group does not appreciate having to make sacrifices. Where is the instant gratification in that?!? John Doe who is a nobody needs to feel special and important and therefore has to be able to pull off the things that he/she normally daydreams about while seeking escape in drugs, drinks, daytime tv, romance novels and video games. Giving people hard choices reminds them of their usual shortcomings and lack of achievements and therefore is usually only popular among sadomasochists... or weirdos... or elitists... or... So where is the obvious option (with neon sign that says 'THIS WAY TO HEROIC ENDING -->'? Otherwise they'll miss out on all the backpatting, in-game sycophants heaping the usual drivel upon you 'you saved us, marry me, where would we be without you, nobody but you could have pulled it off', flag waving/fireworks/celebrations etc.

Wait what? you get killed by porcupines? .. wow that's not a very smart move from the developers, I would be really depressed if a few birds and a porcupine came out from under leaves and smothered my character to death . First they lull you into a false sense of security, then they attack you from all sides. You'll never know what hit you...

I know it is not 'exactly' what you asked for, but I would recommend checking out Firefox as an upgrade/replacement for IE. I was running IE8 (ships with Windows 7, no way to avoid it) and was thoroughly fed up with it. Simply download the 10 Mb (approx.) exefile, install, let it import your current settings/favourites and you will not miss IE That way, you can have the superior firefox and still keep your IE6 around if it makes you feel more at ease Recommended extras are noscript, adblocker and the download helper

I would say up untill around 1870 when hte Prussians trashed them, they were actually doing quite well. They were no pushover in WWI either. Wrestling most of the continental parts of the Angevin Empire from the English (who claimed it through the Plantagenet bloodline) and assimiliating Burgundy and Brittany (resistance is futile) were no small feats. I think the only reason people mock them a bit these days is because they lost out to numerically and materially inferior foe in WWII. Oh yeah, and then there was that thing with Nelson and sea engagements that didn't go down too well

Short corporals makes famous leaders One of Napoleons overlooked legacies is, besides the dream of a united Europe, the Napoleonic Code. Since that is all legalese, it is probably dry stuff too

It is probably hard to find not so dry stuff. For all it's artistic license, the tv series "Rome" does a damn good job (imho) of portraying the time period and the mentality of the people who lived 2000 years ago. It doesn't cover his rise to power as legion commander, the wars in Gaul or his captivity by the mediterranean pirates or any of the other obscure yet interesting stuff, but you have to read really dry stuff (Suetonius?) to get a more detailed biography.

World of Goo. Surprisingly fun if taken in small doses. Not sure I could play it for prolonged periods of time. Has that weird "happy go lucky" feel to it that I remember from Lemmings and the original Worms.

Refreshing my old history lessons a bit, reading up on some of the major engagements in WWII (mostly the 3 largest ones). After that, probably time for a refresher of the pre-republic Roman era

Bortherhood of the Wolf Wow, that was bad... not even Monica Belluci could save that movie

Because they can?

They are learning from the best, the movie industry. They have exercised market control for years with the region encoding scheme in order to fight a free market and free trade.

Actually, a lot of universities, observatories, heck even churches were built as prestige projects by monarchs, trying to outdo each other. Not saying that none were ever built by a church, but the "all" is a wast exaggeration. I read a good book once about the history of the British Isles. Unfortunately it only covered the time from 4200BC to 400AD, so newer history (including the arrival of Chrisianity in the post Roman era) isn't covered.

I even bought an Aussie slang dictionary

Say wut? Of the universities I know, none were either founded nor funded by a church. My highchool was founded by a church in 1184 (AD) or so, but the universities? Not really.

Preaching to the choir I think... hate it with a passion. Thats like accusing The World Trade center of being the cause of 9/11 rather than just accept that piracy causes DRM and deal with the source of the problem. I wonder if people ever considered that Stardocks games might appeal to a different demographics than say Activision, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts games?

I think, usually 100% goes to the publisher. Of course, the publisher then has to buy the investors that they borrowed the money from to finance it (with interest), they pay the PR dudes, they pay their distribution network, they pay the devloper contracted to develop the product, they pay their own employees, they pay taxes, they pay external consulting firms (market analysis, audits etc.), they pay the running cost of maintaining their assets (rent, electricity, hardware etc.), they pay... well, you get the picture. It's a business. They invest money (sometimes their own, sometimes other peoples) in projects they believe are profitable. Digital distribution has it's pros and cons. it is not by any means free, as you still need the organisation, the hardware, the software, the bandwidth (wanna bet, unusal bandwidth requirements comes at a special price?) and the staff to maintain it, credit card companies/paypal whatever wants their share of the turnover too. Once it you have the infrastructure in place though, it is easier to increase the available sortiment compared to a physical shelf. Edit: Then of course they also have to pay the DRM dudes.

It's sort of a cousin to Heroes of Might and Magic III and Disciples II I might still have the box lying around here somewhere... Edit: I seem to remember that the game mechanics were fun, but the level design never really appealed to me, so it got stashed away in a big cardboard box and forgotten.

Yeah, $100 (thats $97 USD or 60 British pound) seems to be the "normal" release date price for new games down here. Sort of encourages waiting for sales or buying DD from places with less price gouging.

What's taxation like in Australia? Most of Europe gets a 15-25% price hike just from VAT, though. Not saying we aren't shafted, but that's a part of the equation, too... GST (thats Aussie VAT) is 10%. The Kiwis are worse off and just had a GST hike. As for income tax etc. not sure. I think I pay somewhere around 30-33% of my income to the tax man (blood sucker that he is)