metadigital

I've been avoiding posting in this thread, despite some mouth-watering tidbits I'd love to have jumped on, because I've been tired and really don't want to get into some of the endless arguments again, but this one was too much. It's far from settled that Reaganomics "worked". In fact, in many aspects not only did they not work, they were at best an abject failure, at worst did immeasurable harm. But that depends on how you look at it. There were people who made great money, but any trickle down didn't make up for the losses the poor faced. So no, the debate is far from moot. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What if the poor financed the defeat of the Soviet Union? Is that a reasonable dividend for their contribution during the eighties? After all, Regan did significantly contribute to the end of the Cold War ... (...And welcome to the discussion. )

I think Spain, Germany, France and UK contribute the most to the Eurovision, anyway. Maybe the UK regard it as a charity thing ... "

You are very fortunate not to know ! Peter Andre was Michael Jackson tribute singer when he was discovered by Ian "Molly" Meldrum (music commentator from the "Hey Hey It's Saturday Night" show and quondam presenter of "Countdown" (Top of The Pops), in Australia) when he was a young teenager. He subsequently released a bunch of terrible pop songs and was reknown more for his abdominal muscles than his singing (and since Molly gave standing orders to "Hide the white socks" he didn't get a chance to dance like Michael Jackson), before disapearing into obscurity on his family estate near Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For some unknown reason, ITV called him up a decade later and invited him onto the Reality show "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" (sic), which coincided with Jordan's

I guess I don't hold Katie Price responsible for the utter contempt I feel for the average male in the UK who drools over Jordan's beach-ball bosoms and Abby Titmus soft pr0n ... I must say Jordan certainly has done well for herself, what with the

That's one of those elements with a half-life of nano-seconds, isn't it? Not much time to spend admiring it ...

Is that irony, as the Dutch are neighbours? Stupid almost-Germans from the Netherlands ...

Why did you especially want young children to teach the Exile's companions about the Force? "

No.

Typical short-sided approach to management relations. It's more likely to drive people to resentment and thus the dark side. Is there a union for Jedi? They really need to complain to the union rep. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think the problem is the Jedi is the Union. Unless the Jedi Council is a seperate legal entity; an organisation outside the Jedi Union (hand in your membership card when you get the call) and acting as its employer. (Sort of like the convoluted BBC board ...) :D

You're a little late, we've had a twenty-page discussion about it already (<{POST_SNAPBACK}>)! The conclusion I came to (feel free to read the thread and make your own) is that the philosophy of The Force is not even given the amount of thought that the contributors to this thread have given it. It is not even an after-thought; so, consequently, when we try to unravel the quiddity of this imaginary concept (which -- naturally -- prevents us from direct observation and scientific experimentation) we have only the self-contradictory descriptions in Kreia / Atris / Traya / Jedi Council / individual Jedi members. I have noted (and recorded, in the above-mentioned thread) some of the more heinous contrdictions: some in the same speech of a character, in adjacent paragraphs! Because of this, I concluded that the Force is indeed a (malevolent) despotic being, that manipulates the universe via the Force for its own agenda (presumably to some sort of self-actualization). My utlimate conclusion was that Kreia was in fact correct; subsequently she must be lauded as a True Prophet by the Anti-Force advocates, who seek to end the falsehoods of the Force, to restore true freedom of choice back to the inhabitants of the universe.

It comes down to risk management. It sounds like the Jedi Council are advocating a "zero-tolerance" policy to Risk Management. There is certainly much to risk, but the actual probability of a Jedi going rogue seems to me (without the dubious benefit of reference to the extensive EU " ) is miniscule when compared to the everyday gain in value provided by the Jedi community by being loving members of society.

Not sure about some of your categories (Sisters of Mercy?), but there are certainly plenty of precedents in the world: Franciscan, Benedictine and Cistercian Christian monks, Buddhist, Eastern Orthodox (the tonsured ones), etcetra, etc. That's a prefectly reasonable conclusion for the Jedi, because it parallels what happens to religions after a time; the interpretations bifurcate endlessly until we have everything from Rosicrucians to Roman Catholics, Baptists to Methodists, Russian, Eastern and Armenian Orthodoxes.

Apologies, that was

Morales will always play apart in every topic. And will be argued because people have different beliefs or morals. ... Lately I been paying more attention to discoveries in Stem Cell Reaserch. Its illegal here in Canada so I have to wait for news from Europe regarding it, but as someone with a debilitating herditary condition, I blow my top everytime I hear someone not suffering the pain and financial cost of $13,000+ a year in medication cost say its wrong to study these things. ... Until one and all of these parties actually willing to sit down and work out compromises, it will never be answered. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Regarding my previous comment about politically expedient actions being the norm, and linking that to "victors write the history", I see another parallel: the wanton intimidation, blackmail and terrorism being deployed, by extremist sections of our democratic societies, to extort changes to our societies. I'm thinking specifically about "the-end-justifies-the-means", e.g. Against Animal Testing coercion, targeting upstream commercial suppliers of staples like staiionery to legal labs (and even exhuming the body of an woman who supplied animals, in the UK recently), or the fanatic on Death Row in the US who blissfully, earnestly believes that he is doing "God's work" by murdering an abortion doctor.

But at what cost? For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Matthew 16:26) The horror ... the horror ...

I never knew all that about Cesium. I'm a convert! Cs is cool. linky Mental note: my subscription to AMSWWBUW is due.

Have you ever made your own using a hot-air-blower-popcorn machine (very popular in the US, but available everywhere if you look hard enough)? You will never eat that coconut oil-covered plastic crap ever again. Seriously, the coconut oil is used because it is the cheapest oil to use; it is disgusting and has as much resemblance to butter as cat mucus. If you get a hot-air-blower-popcorn maker, you will start to have popcorn for all sorts of occassions; furthermore, without butter it tastes pretty good and is very very healthy (just hot, fluffy sweet corn rich in B vitamins). You don't know what you're missing ...

I just had a quick scan of the wikis and the game does sound pretty good ...

Maybe Sony haven't learnt that much from the Betamax ... IBM have also been guilty of head-in-the-sand arrogance wrt their customers in the past (especially the late 80s early 90s), lets hope the two big boys are backing up their platform with some good developer support. I'd be surprised if Sony haven't locked in a bunch of exclusive titles for the launch, though (and Microsoft for the Xbox 360, too, for that matter). It will be interesting to see if we finally approach convergence with this next gen; I think we might need to wait for the next one after. I will probably just buy a new PC and kit it out with a projector ...

You'll tell us when the next version is available, I take it? As for names: "Wise One": it might be better to emphasise the difference in wisdom between the summoner and the summoned; perhaps call the summoned being a "gnostic" (i.e. "hidden knowledge"), or some derivative. A "Guiding Light" could be an animus ("little soul"), or you might even want to call both creatures animuses (animi? ) and have two different types -- Gnostic and Greater. (Okay, but some words are mixed Greek/Latin, like "television" ) Can't give you the Greek equivalent now (I can't find a good classical suffix reference at the moment).

Well, the stats are pretty close, so I would be foolish to try to argue -- especially without seeing the performances. It all depends on the games, in any case.

drats! you beat me to it! I was going to suggest that. I always thought that the Jedi Order should teach their padawans to understand and cope with their emotions rather than frobid them altogether. Let's face it, wether they're allowed to or not, people are going to fall in love, get angry, etc. They might as well be prepared for it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, another cult of the Jedi! Isn't that one of the conclusions of KotOR2, though? With the death / defeat of the last of the Jedi council, the old Jedi teachings have been disproved and discredited. Assuming a LS ending, the next logical phase was the Exile builiding the next Jedi Council from the Jedi companions (and Atris). This would be a perfect time to take advantage of Atris's experiences to modify the Jedi scriptures -- sort of like what the First Council of Nicaea did for Roman Catholicism.

Maybe the harakiri could be employed as a Jedi ritual?

Don't take my word for it: GamesIndustry review ... Looking at the content of the two conferences today in Los Angeles - and the MTV special last week, in the case of Xbox 360 - "outclassed" is a word that comes to mind a lot. The bar which was set by Microsoft last week has not only been met, it has been vaulted over. PlayStation 3 is more powerful, more fully featured, more innovative and better supported than Xbox 360. When the Sony conference kicked off, we expected to see something "a bit better" than Xbox, technologically. We didn't expect to have our most fundamental beliefs about what next-generation games will be capable of changed. That, however, is exactly what happened. ... If the day could be summed up in a microcosm, it would be Square Enix' story that explained events best. Yoichi Wada, the firm's president, made two stops today. At the Sony conference, he was one of many developers presenting stunning tech demos - in his case, a truly stunning real-time recreation of the opening to Final Fantasy VII, using characters almost as high quality as those seen in the forthcoming Advent Children movie. Within a matter of hours, he had another stop to make - this time with a headline billing at the Microsoft conference, where he revealed that Square Enix will be supporting Xbox 360... With the release of a four year old massively multiplayer game that's already available on PS2 and PC. ... Remember that libel laws are in effect and Microsoft is not afraid to take punitive legal action. I think it is quite clear that the PS3 is a better piece of hardware than the Xbox 360. (I have heard that from several different sources now, and the published specifications back up the demos, at least as far as the graphics chips are concerned.) This article also states that Sony have the lead in software. Of course that is the real battlefield: no need to tell Sony about Betamax!