ThunderPeel2001

Once you've played and gotten used to an XL version of a DS, the "normal" version seems TINY. I was holding off on buying a 3DS because I want an XL version -- and now there is one. Yay!

Star Trek did offer differing points of view, too. Bones and Spock were two opposites... Although I would never think of Star Trek and think "politics!"

So who's to say where the line is between hate speech and a joke in poor taste? You say you think people should be stopped in the former case, but never in the latter...

Gemini Rue had fantastic atmosphere, and I even enjoyed the shooting sections, but I found the dialogue and characterisation to be very poor indeed.

So I finally started playing this and I'm enjoying it... to a point. Every time I try and use Bullet Time™ or Shoot Dodge™ I get my ass handed to me. Every time I use Cover (and start playing like Gears of War) I do fine (more or less). Friends have told me that you use the slow-mo stuff more when you get better, but at the moment I just feel like I'm punished when I use it. Anyways, aside from that, it's pretty fun. The levels and presentation are AMAZING. Really slick. Just got to Chapter 5. Do the clues do anything? I presume they help with the story in some way?

Well said, Rodi! Ive heard what you're referring to sometimes called 'Casual Racism', or 'Casual Sexism'.

Cool. Looks like I need to pick this up. (It's better than Gemini Rue, right?)

Yep, I too think the Surface is pretty cool. If it forces Apple to start opening up the walled garden because they finally have a serious competitor, then all the better.

You don't mean to be condescending and rude, and yet you can't help but be exactly that at the end of your post. Edit: Chris put it rather succinctly. The biggest problem with the self-righteous Athiests is that they often don't understand why anyone would need to believe in something like that. There are plenty of people who would simply not be around if it wasn't for their personal beliefs. To have someone come along and mock them out of a sense superiority digusts me, and yet I've seen it happen many times. Life is hard enough as it is. If you need that belief to get you through it, then I completely respect you and your beliefs -- provided they don't affect other people negatively (e.g. you're attacking gay people), and you're not being manipulated (e.g. you have to pay a subscription to reach enlightenment), and that holds true for 99.999% of religion. And to be clear: I'm not talking about giving the Church power over State. I'm talking about personal beliefs.

This thread seems really healthy to me. And for the record, I was arguing for the people who were being rudely told to leave the thread. I love this topic, it just tends to lead to arguments, which causes rifts, which affects relationships in the community, which affects the whole tone of the forum. At some point you have to ask yourself what's more important: That we all agree on what feminism is, or that we all get along. Don't try and paint me as The Lone Guy Who Wants This Thread To Die, when there's plenty of us who see danger ahead. My point was: If enough people want to see this thread sink, they've earned the right to have their voices taken seriously, not just be told to go away. That was it. And I only say this because of the history of this thread -- which has shown that we get easily massively derailed into arguments about race(!), arguments about what sexism actually is, and whether "All Female" car insurance companies are an example of men being discriminated against. Still, everything seems cordial so far this time... (tries to not cynically glance at his watch).

Same here, Tim-E. I used to be a proud atheist until Dawkins started publicly dismissing people because of their beliefs. Then I read The God Delusion and more interviews with Dawkins, and I realised two things: 1. Dawkins is attacking something he openly admits he doesn't understand (why someone would feel the need to believe in something). 2. By attacking other people's beliefs you become just as bad as the religious people you're supposedly fighting against. Worse still, I've met enough Atheists (note the capital "A") who are full of themselves because they think they're superior to religious people -- (again, surely the very thing they hate about religious people?). Either way, my tolerance for anti-religious sentiment is zero at the moment (this isn't aimed at you, Yufster, Bill Maher just brought these thoughts to the forefront of my mind).

The point of the clip was to make fun of religious people. Yes, the Senator made an ass of himself, but the "joke" was that the Senator seemingly admits that he's religious because he has a low IQ. I'm willing to bet my left testicle that it's taken from Maher's documentary, "Religulous". (Edit: It was.) Anyways, sorry for not laughing. On a side note: Religious bigots would still be bigots if you took their religion away from them. It's not like someone's going to go, "I consider homosexuality unnatural and wrong because it says so in The Bible... What's that? You've proven to me that God doesn't exist and The Bible is bunk? Well then! I think homosexuality is perfectly normal!" People use religion to backup beliefs they already hold -- attacking their religion isn't going to change their minds, they'll just justify their beliefs in some other way.

His country was FOUNDED by religious people. The person who populated the theory of evolution was religious. I'm kind of tired of people attacking religion, to be honest. As Einstein put it: "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being." Bill Maher could use a little humility.

Then why do you have anti-virus software? ;-P

I completely agree, but your criticism of that system was that, "all it does is absolve Windows from the consequences". It's the fact that Windows is an old fashioned operating system that causes a lot of problems, not the UAC style security.

While it was on Craigslist, that homophobic ad was still a fake: The ad was actually placed by a high school student named Daryl who told McGonnigal: "I write horrible posts on Craigslist all over the country to see what issues make people angriest for a project I'm putting together. I'm sorry anyone that was offended. ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-mcgonnigal/anti-gay-craigslist-ad-a-hoax_b_1597454.html

When does the average user make use of >4GB? Most applications are still 32-bit and so can only address the first 3.5GB anyway.

Every computer is secure until it's compromised. By saying "zero hitches" it's like you believe your system is bullet-proof or something(?). OSX uses exacty the same system, they just don't call it UAC. They also ask for your password.

This is a much better argument than "if you don't like it, go away". The topic is by nature a very contentious one, and has already lead to many heated discussions. Why? Because it's something a lot of us feel very strongly about. Like religion or politics (it IS politics). Should women have equal rights to men? Of course they should. I don't think anyone here has ever expressed an opinion otherwise, but it still leads to many angry words and insults being thrown around. Saying things like "people come in it to yell about how feminism is stupid and then refuse to get educated" is prime example of a casually thrown around insult likely to get people's backs up. I'm all for a level-headed discussion, but I'm not naive enough to believe something like this can be discussed without leading to arguments. In fact, that's why we all walked away from this thread last time.

It's crazy to run your system without UAC these days. As I've pointed out before, the reason why XP didn't give people "hassle" was that Microsoft just thought it would be easier to have all users running as Administrators by default. This meant that every bit of software you ran had complete Admin rights -- the ability to do anything to your system, whether you wanted it to, or not. Any program could read/write/delete ANY file on your system without having to ask for your permission. It was utterly insane and very outdated. Vista introduced the type of security that should have already been in place, in the guise of UAC. By default, every user now ran with normal User priviledges instead of Administrator -- and if a program needed access to system files/folders, or other folders it wouldn't normally have access to, it needed to ask your permission to be allowed to do so. It's not perfect solution, but it's the best Windows has at the moment, and it's a damn sight better than not having anything. Controversially for those who are aware of security issues, MS reduced the default level of UAC for Windows 7 so the user would get less nag windows -- even though it meant their systems weren't as protected as with Vista. Yes, the default security went DOWN a notch... and people think it's better. *sigh* Needless to say, you can't just install some virus software and turn off UAC, thinking you've got a replacement.

Turning off UAC is a terrible idea. It always makes my toes curl when someone tells me they've done that.

Ditto.

I'm sorry, but this this attitude (also expressed by Sal) utterly stinks. It shows no respect for other people here, or their opinions. This thread is not an isolated thing. It's part of a community. As all threads here are. The attitude is akin to saying, "I don't give a shit about your opinion, if you don't like it - leave!", and it's completely destructive and unnecessary. In other words: If people are being upset by a thread, then as members of this community, their opinions should be taken into account. Like it or not we must co-exist, and if some members want this discussion to continue, they need to come up with a better argument than the divisive and aggressive one currently presented. Why? Because topics like this, and corresponding attitudes like that, can destroy a community. Also, Rodi, he sings "cry out". Girl I want to make you sweat Sweat till you can't sweat no more And if you cry out I'm gonna push it some, mo-o-ore Once again, any inference about rape/rape culture came entirely from your own brain. As for the implication that seduction is part of rape culture, I agree with the following blog: http://nataliaantono...ad-problematic/

? Nowhere in the song does it say, "I'll slip you a Mickey". The song is a romantic song. The female part isn't sung by a woman in distress, it's sung by a woman who is attracted to a man. The inference is that they're in love. You can tell this by how it's being sung by the female part. It's not glorifying, nor promoting, "rape culture". A guy drooling and coercing a woman who's not attracted to him is repugnant, but it's never implied in the performance or the lyrics that that's the case. Same goes for "Girl I Want To Make You Sweat". If you're listening to that song and thinking that the woman is crying out in distress, that's in your mind. I'll never forgive the person who resurrected this thread.

Well done, sir!