Amentep

I got to admit my interest in AP dipped when I read that being able to make choices in defining the character (gender) weren't going to be in. I did keep up with the game and how it turned out sounds interesting so I'm willing to give it a shot (which is pretty much how I approach any game without character customization in this day and age).

Well, I gave three reasons why I think the repair system is one of the highlights of Fallout 3's gameplay design. Care to tell me why you hate it so much? It adds nothing to the game yet is highly annoying? I dunno, I didn't mind it that much, but I did think weapons degraded too fast for the most part, necessitating carrying around dozens of weapons and millions of ammo. How would you improve the system? I wouldn't mind seeing some thing like repair allowing a slower rate of decay (indicating maintenance). Or a maintenance option in the menu that would cause time to pass but increase the durability of the weapon, extending its life (but then time passage would have to matter, I think, for that to really work).

If there's one thing that spy movies and television shows have taught me is that the world is full of warehouses full of empty crates, just waiting to be pushed onto someone or broken in a fight.

It should be pointed out California doesn't have a code called "Statutory Rape"; the "Unlawful Sex With A Minor" (PC 261.5) is, however, a subsection of PC 261, which defines Rape. I don't believe that it is unfair to think that "Unlawful Sex With a Minor" is equivilent to "Statutory Rape" whether they dropped the charges related to PC 261 or not. Ergo I remain unconvinced classing Polanski as a "rapist" to be incorrect terminology. He plea bargined to the lesser charge in hopes of getting a lighter sentence, not dissimilar to a drunk driver pleading to Manslaughter so as to not face murder charges. It should also be pointed out that PC 261.5 indicated that those convicted of Unlawful Sex can have a liability in civil trial (hence the civil trial, settled out of court, where Polanski paid his victim).

I have no interest in achievements. Its kinda fun to look back sometimes and see what I unlocked and why, but I'm not hunting them all down. I like replaying a game because the game was fun, not because I want to spend 10 hours trying to perform some obscure combination of things to unlock a new achievement

I never said the judge betrayed the deal; just that was Polanski's perspective was the Judge and DA tricked him and I think its part of why people have rallied around him. As I pointed out, there was no reason why Polanski couldn't have started serving the sentence and fought his sentence on appeal (AFAIK) had it really been an issue rather than running from the law.

From Polanski's side - he left because his sweetheart plea bargain deal was going to be ignored by the judge according to him and he felt like the judge and the DA colluded to convince him to plead guilty so they could make an example of him. Clearly the rape was dispicable and I don't agree him fleeing (he could have fought it under appeal, afaik) and the judge is dead now so can't really defend himself, but I suspect that this, combined with the victim wanting the whole thing to end is the reason why so many people misguidedly IMO back Polanski (well that and he's a famous director, who is apparently fairly likeable in person and his wife was horribly murdered in the 60s)

Personally, I've always preferred to judge entertainment based on what it gives me as opposed to what I wanted it to be. Truth is very little will meet what I want it to be, but what it is can often be entertaining in its own way.

It is against the Law. The Law is the Law and no one is above the Law. If you disagree with the Law that does not give you the right to break the Law. In Iowa those 15 year old boys would be charged and placed on the sex offender list. Hell, sexting has gotten minors prison time and labeled as such. It is the Law. There's a difference between disagreeing with a law, debating the merits of the law and breaking the law.

That's actually just where the victim gives her testimony to the Grand Jury, not the complete transcripts (but I imagine the full transcripts would be relatively huge and cumbersome).

It wasn't uncommon in the early part of the last century for men and women who were teens - often young teens - to marry either. Being older - late teens or twenties - when marrying was typically the privilege of the upper class who had the luxury of being able to complete their education before considering family life. Those in the lower or middle class were more inclined to take a job, work at the family farm or business rather than stay in school. They were treated as an adult, and if they married their wife was considered an adult as well. Our modern concept about teens is primarily a shift in society during the post-WWII era, as far as I can tell, and changed faster in urban areas than in rural ones. Even into the 1950s you have examples of, lets say the marriages of Jerry Lee Lewis (23) and Myra Gale Brown (13) or Elvis Presley (24) and Priscilla Wagner/Beaulieu (14) (as both Lewis and Presley came from rural backgrounds, and neither saw any "wrong" in their marriages; Lewis in particular never understood the near career ending backlash that started in London and continued in New York after his marriage). All this is a side point to Polanski, since he wasn't married to his victim; and since he plead guilty, the only real question to my mind (and apparently his claim as to why he fled) is how much time should he serve (if, at this point, any).

There's actually a GURPS based version of the Prime Directive Star Trek (Starfleet Battles) role playing game (they also did D20 and are planning on returning to D6 as well). I believe its set in a divergent universe, but I'd imagine it would be adaptable to re-aligning with whatever ST universe one wanted.

I don't think its silly. When I was in high school one of the things EVERY teen boy was keenly aware of was the age of consent. And if you decided to date someone who was under that age, you were aware of what you were getting into. I'm not a fan of giving a 16 year old a free pass with a 15 year old just because they're close in age. I think maybe it should be set up with an age separation in mind, something like the two minors cant be more than 2-3 years apart, or something to that effect. After all, I was 13 my first time (as was my gf at the time), who would have been wrong in that scenario? As long as the arbitrary divide exists, then it either needs to be enforced, or made less arbitrary, so to that I can agree. That's the problem with the dividing line though (and I think even with a 2-3 year gap there is still going to be debate; 3 year gap is the difference between a 14 year old and a 17 year old and I can see a lot of people saying that those two time periods are too different.) As a side note, I have seen 13 year olds who looked like they were in their 20s (and 40 year olds who looked like they were in their teens), so unless we expect one another to trade and authenticate ID badges before going horizontal, I think its always going to have a certain amount of arbitrariness that just has to be lived with. Not that it ultimately matters since Polanski plead guilty; apparently the issue was whether or not the sentence being handed down was correct/fair/unjust/cruel&unusual, given a supposed plea bargain on Polanski's case. Not necessarily unlike other cases.

I don't think its silly. When I was in high school one of the things EVERY teen boy was keenly aware of was the age of consent. And if you decided to date someone who was under that age, you were aware of what you were getting into. I'm not a fan of giving a 16 year old a free pass with a 15 year old just because they're close in age.

Debatable. Actually, it has BEEN debated. in Parliament. And in Congress. At length. By democratically elected representatives. Hence it's the law. In England the minimum age is 16 years. Now, at 15 years, 11 months, and 28 days I'd be willing to concede leniency. 13 years is not just wrong, it's obviously wrong. A 13 year old does not even look like they're old enough to give consent. What if one is 13 and the other 15? One is 15 and the other 16?

The sword has to love the smith, because without the smith, the sword wouldn't exist. While the creation of the sword may be a hot, hammer smashy affair, its not a sword until the smith is done with it. I never seem to have philosophical debates in my dreams. I did dream last night that me and two other people were being chased by a shark that swam through the air (like it was water) and which only we could see though. I managed to free one of my compatriots who'd been captured by the shark (it was laying across the top of a giant cup he'd gotten trapped in) by making it chase me through a crowded high school.

I watched them in the order they came out in, and enjoyed them each for what they were.

Good point. Anyone remember that collector who went into the British library and defaced rare books so his own copies would be even rarer? What a douche. This guy? The weird thing is his story reminds me a bit of William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki short-story, "The Find". Mind you in my brief employ of a Library most people just seemed to cut pictures of the famous out of Rolling Stone.

That's what my brother suggested; not sure what to pros vs cons of the modified pushup is though.

Hopefully this doesn't get the thread too far off track, but... I used to enjoy doing situps/pushups as a part of my exercise routine, but after I broke my ankle, I find it impossible to get into proper position for pushups due to a certain immobility of one of my toes also injured in the fall. Does anyone know of some way to modify pushups so as to get their benefit without necessarily putting the same kind of toe mobility requirements on it? Putting all the pressure on one foot isn't the way to go. Given that I'm now at the heaviest I've ever been, I really need to get back into a routine but I'm a bit stumped on this one.

Doesn't Nestle own about five hundred different brands now? They're like the AOL/TimeWarner of foods. Off the top of my head, Perrier (amid a few dozen other bottled waters), Ralston/Purina (including Alpo, Friskies), Nestle (naturally), Maggi, Taster's Choice, Cereal Partners Worldwide (a partnership with General Mills which includes putting out GM cereals outside of the US, like Cheerios, and manufacture in the US of some products, like H

I'd be less worried about someone going stabby with the scissors and more worried they were planning on cutting something out of the books or magazines. Although, in my experience, they usually just go up a few floors and tear it out anyhow.

Watched PANDORUM. Pretty entertaining film, let down a bit by an ending that doesn't quite work the way I think the producers wanted it to.

Asked my brother a bit about Stop Motion filming since he's actually done some stop motion shorts: ***** What makes the "jerkiness" is two things: a) each image in a Ray Harryhausen flick or other model work (Nightmare Before Christmas, for example) is being shot still as each image is shot. Since there isn't any motion, the eye picks that up subtly as being not quite normal. For example, look at your finger. If you move it back and forth rapidly, to your eye it blurs. If you filmed each discrete motion on a camera and showed it sped up to keep the same pace as you wiggling your finger, it would look like a still image moving rapidly, without blur, and thus it would look unnatural and jerky. b) That's the main thing, but I think also poor animation that doesn't reflect natural movement well also can contribute to the jerky look. Like, with Ray Harryhausen, or Willis O'Brian in King Kong, they were great character animators, and their motion looks more realistic than, for instance, the animated creatures done in Jack the Giant Killer, which were done by younger, less experienced animators. There is a way to make it less jerky, and it has been used. For Dragonslayer, they developed a way to create motion in the model when it was needed, so it blurs naturally as it flies, and that was one of the secrets as to why it looks so awesome! I think the technology continued to be used throughout big budget films of the 80's (like the alien creature at the end of Howard the Duck, things like that), but I don't think it has been used much as CGI rose to prominence and after the blue screen work of the 80's gave way to more modern special effects. Human animation would follow the same principles as model animation, there really wouldn't be any major difference, except that as human beings, people would recognize what they are looking at are humans, and they'd pick up any differences in motion pretty well. Don't forget one good example of human animation: . [Mike Jittlov] actually shot and animated himself for the film, so just imagine doing that!

Wait, the companions in Fallout 2 actually did something based on what tactics you gave them? I never experienced that. Seemed like regardless of what I requested of them, they were mostly there to accidentally shoot me, get accidentally shot by me, or to inexplicably use the melee weapon in combat instead of the gun I gave them despite me telling them to equip and use it, setting up a scenario where they'd rush in get shot to death by everybody in the firefight.