Amentep

Perhaps. Honestly though I'd much rather like/dislike PE for what it is than for what I thought it should/could have been. Too much expectation will raise the bar so high nothing can ever live up to it.

Something that credibly captures the spirit of what went before. Which this doesn't. That doesn't mean it's going to be bad... but it does mean that Obz were being a bit lawyerly with their pitch. Really depends on your what you're looking for. Any game that met the keywords of "High Fantasy", "Isometric", "party based", "role playing game", "real time with pause" could argue that it was a spiritual successor of the IE games and not be incorrect (which is pretty much where I stopped with my expectations, too).

I can actually. The writing doesn't stand out much (as most of us agree), but that goes both ways. Not bad, not very good. Serviceable. In writing terms being unremarkable is in most cases worse than being actively bad. At least actively bad stuff like 2-dog/ Moira/ Jean-Luc Picard Uriel Septim is memorable, if the best you can say about writing is "well, it exists" then it may as well not. Your post was unremarkable. Please stop posting until you write something truly bad or a true pearl of wisdom. Is that how your logic works? As I already said, not all writing has to be memorable or noteworthy. As long as it is serviceable, it is OK. Just like in real life, on bulletin boards, in movies, in newspapers and, yes, even in books. As long as it keeps your interest long enough for you to find the gems, it's OK. I also disagree with your opinion that actively bad is better than serviceable. Actively bad ruins a game for me. Serviceable is just that, serviceable. Sometimes that's all that's needed, as long as there are some good parts too. Its probably worth pointing out that games have the benefit of providing entertainment outside of the writing. To be honest I've never felt positively or negatively about Bethesda's writing and have enjoyed playing the games. They're not perfect but they entertain me. Serviceable writing is problematic IMO only when writing is the only resource of the creation (ie novels, short stories). A movie can have spectacle or a game gameplay that makes the good/bad writing irrelevant if the other aspect is appealing.

I don't think anyone equated science with religion though. I certainly did not.

^the distance between two points being halved being infinite is true. The thing is its irrelevant unless your feet are themselves infinitely small (lim-> inf = 0). There's a limit to how small a distance can be that's relative to size of locomotion as you can only half any distance to a ratio of the size of the feet (or perhaps the motor coordination of the individual to shift their feet micro-distances) in a real-world scenario. In other words if you can't take a .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 foot step, that distance is covered when you do step and the ability to divide infinitely is lost. or something...

Yeah, I'm not crazy about these kind of developments (much like New York's attempt to ban supersized drinks). They just seem wrongheaded.

I only disagree with the initial part about our senses, which I believe to be unique to each individual and are therefore a physical construct since there is no way of definitively knowing that what one person may taste or see is experienced the same as another would. A little bit edging towards solipsistic for me, but I understand your point.

Well again, the question to my mind is uncertain; either there is some underlying order (regardless of whether we can ever perceive it) or there isn't (and we can never see it). In the case of the later it is probably appropriate to say that there is no God's Eye view; however in the case of the former it would be theoretically possible to have a God's Eye view (whether the theoretical possibility could be translated into a real view for humanity is a different point, hence my point that what may be theoretically possible may only be achievable by a sufficiently omniscient "God"). Anyhow, to my mind the statement can't be definitive until more is known about the universe and whether there is something there to hang a hat on, so to say.

Good luck Alvin!

I'd expect that would be easier to do in a game that defines what area of the body got hit. When you're dealing with something more all-encompassing I'd imagine the abstraction might be difficult to handle on the extremes.

I think curling can be fun to watch. Also enjoy ski jump, bobsled, luge, skeleton, alpine, figure skating, speed skating and freestyle skiing. But I'll watch anything if its a good competition going on.

One thing I've always felt was that we're only capable of understanding that which our senses allow us to understand. Those things that lie outside of our ability to physically sense exist as a construct, that over time gets revised. So in that sense I buy Dr. Bronowski's idea that truth in science is really always "truth as we currently understand it". Mind you I find it ironic that in an article about the "Dangers of Certainty" the author points out that Dr. Bronowski insisted "there is no God's eye view" which in itself is a very particular certainty and perhaps one that should be taken rather lightly instead (I could agree with the argument, perhaps, that humanity's limited perceptions will never allow us a "God's eye" view, simply because we have to admit to the limitations of our own ability to perceive that around us that remains imperceptible or that ties in too closely to how our senses construct our thought). However if the universe is not random in its entirety, a God's eye view should be theoretically possible (if only practically possible for a sufficiently omniscient God)

I liked ME 1-3, but I'd say none of them ever really met up to my expectations after 1 had set them. 1 pretty much met my pre-playing expectations when I played it. That said, ME 3 is an enjoyable game, even if I think the ending doesn't work and is a big unsatisfying railroad.

I'm not convinced they're going to find that Diamond Staff with that level of effort put into their searches unless the Diamond Staff had arms and legs and runs or climbs past them.

I'm okay with letting the designers design what they design and it'll either work or not. But generally speaking more choices are better than less choices. My only problem would be if every character was forced to dress like Red Sonja, not that a player could choose to dress like Red Sonja in game.

Yeah NBC's coverage of the last few Olympics have been dreadful, IMO. I'll probably still tune in, but often I find myself flipping over to see if the events happening yet (and if not flipping to something else rather than listen to Bob Costas ramble on).

The first one in from JUNGLE COMICS 13 - a "Fantomah" story by "Barclay Flagg" (actually Fletcher Hanks. His stories are almost fever dream like, and contain a lot of crazy elements (possibly due to his alcoholism). The entire comic - in the public domain - can be found in here - http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=20769 The second is from SPIDEY SUPER STORIES 53 - the Electric Company tie in comic. This has Doctor Doom trying to team up with Namor - http://ifanboy.com/articles/great-moments-in-comics-history-spidey-super-stories-53/ I believe the Batman one is from "The Giants of Hugo Strange" from Batman #1. This is the last of the (wholesale) killer Batman stories as DC put a moratorium on Batman killing villains after this issue - even this early there were complaints about the effect of "comics" on "kids" (this issue in particular is more famous - not for this hanging - but for Batman machine gunning to death giants out of his Batplane). The story is also notable as yet another early Batman story lifted wholesale from another source (in this case, being taken from the Doc Savage story "THE MONSTERS" (May 1934)). Can't place the 4th one, alas.

DAGON (2001) - Stuart Gordon returns to Lovecraft. Its a fun, creepy film but I'm not convinced playing the lead as a bumbling Harold Lloyd-esque everyman was the right idea. Second time I've watched it (first time in over a decade). RIPD (2013) - Men in Black with undead monsters instead of aliens, in a way. Its a fun if disposable 90 minutes of entertainment, but I can't help but feel there was actually a better film in this material than made it to the screen. THE FALCON'S ALIBI (1946) - The penultimate film in Tom Conway's run on the character, this one doesn't quite live up in the mystery division. Seeing Elisha Cook, Jr. as a crazed killer was fun, and there's some nice elements in it but its a bit of a jumble sale in many ways.

Time is an intellectual construct to explain causal effects that we view as a result of indirect experience of something that is outside of our natural ability to view as a whole. Any theory, at this time, to explain time exists as a "three blind men describing an elephant" scenario.

Because not every corn kernel gets ground properly during mastication and/or because the digestive track of modern humans isn't long enough to digest the plant fibers of a whole (or even mostly whole) kernels, IIRC.

My dad had a pinto for 15+ years. The gas tank problem was fixed via the mandatory fix recall and it ran really well until it sat for a length of years unused.

Light doesn't have mass (or more accurately, the photons that make up light have an invariant mass of 0). Not having mass doesn't mean it doesn't have energy, which it does. This energy can relate a relativistic mass for light if light was trapped and in that case the energy can be also be harnessed in some way (regardless of mass). As I understand it.

Watched Puppet Master X (2012) - Toulon's puppets continue the fight against Nazi's sometime in the 1940s. Its fun enough, I wouldn't rank it in the best of the series, but it does better than the worst. Sort of middle of the pack. Ratatouille (2007) - a fun Pixar film; its exciting as its going but I felt the end felt oddly distancing.

Great, now I went and Googled it... Its more than just the blisters too - you can give other people chicken pox if they've never had it, and you can't keep food down during the active period. The blisters, even after they subside may still cause pain. Moral of the story - get the shingles vaccine. My brother saw that in the theater. As I recall that's the one where a fight broke out in the theater several rows ahead of him (but no pommel horses became involved). The film won a contest by WB and Amazon and was released on DVD in 2007 so it has a cult following - reportedly due to how entertainingly bad it is.

Malc I hope you realize that strip clubs are demeaning to women and against the principles of social justice I do frequent strip clubs sometimes, I actually enjoy partying with strippers. They are easy to understand and don't tend to complicate things. Its funny but when I first went to strip clubs I thought I had to save the girls from this "iniquitous" lifestyle . Everyone had a story about why they were doing what they doing but I realized later the girls were just reading my concern and attempting to connect with me so I would feel relaxed. If I now go to strip clubs I do best thing you can do, buy them a few drinks, treat them politely, chat about unimportant things and then pay them for the nights excursions. Keep it simple and don't try to over analyze things is a strip club Next week's lecture in the Bruce's Comportment series will be The House of Lords. Isn't it the same thing, buy them drinks, pay them and don't try to save them from their "iniquitous" lifestyle?