Big budget games pretty much have to be made for the majority. A small niche isn't going to cut it. You can't afford even the slightest chance that the game won't sell millions of copies because if it doesn't the company may fold. So it really makes sense that they should be "dumbed down" for the masses. As budgets go up, accessibility must go up as well. Most people just don't enjoy thinking. It isn't considered fun. It's too much work. It just makes people's heads hurt. So the designers have to make sure that the game is easy enough to play, ideally easy enough to use monkeys for play testing. When the game designer pictures who he is making the game for he should be picturing a monkey. Remember that you can never lose money by underestimating the intelligence of the general public, but you can lose enough to go out of business if you overestimate it. Big budget games are great if you are that monkey, but what if you are not? The consolization of PC games is all about embrace and extend: simplifying the game play as much as you possibly can so that there will be no barrier to entry for anyone who doesn't have severe mental retardation. When people who have had their brain removed have no problem playing and enjoying your game then you know you have a winner on your hands.
I didn't know Neverwinter Nights even had single player. Oh wait. You mean the remake of NWN from Bioware? I don't know why everyone has so little imagination that they have to keep reusing the same name. It doesn't bode well for the games themselves.
but I think they would be better off with somebody else in charge.
Especially now that he is an alleged rapist and molester and woman hating sociopath. Also with the largest military force in the world wanting him silenced I don't think he will be around much longer. So yeah. Wikileaks should start accepting applications. The ad will read: "Must be willing to die for free speech."
Assange flies on commercial aircraft. Too much collateral damage in this case. No reason to take out a whole plain full of civilians. A car accident or any kind of freak accident (someone mentioned falling down stairs) or just the old fashioned suicide with convincing note is more how they will play this one. Or maybe they will just kidnap him and seed some eyewitness reports that he was abducted by aliens. Actually if they can't figure out a way to get their hands on the insurance file they will almost certainly try to seize him and torture him for the info. Then they will probably make him dig his own grave and shoot him just like in the movies.
I think the US would certainly consider Sweden to be an ally. It may not have been the best choice for Assange however. Sweden may be a legal refuge but legality is *not* the issue here. Assange needs to disappear for a while (6 months minimum) until the US loses some interest in him. I think he'd be much better off in a country with no diplomatic relations with the US and no extradition treaty. He's relying too much on that insurance file to keep himself alive. Antarctica might be a good choice. Or buying a sailboat and heading for some uninhabited island in the South Pacific wouldn't be a bad idea. A remote village in the Himalayas perhaps. If course if intelligence agents managed to find him in some remote location they could just kill him and dispose of the body.
Only highly intelligent people realize that GPS recievers get their positional data from cell phone towers. So many idiots believe that those signals come from satellites up there in space. Boy are they stupid.
Personally...I wouldn't rescue them. They and their kids can die from their stupidity...means taking them/future progeny out of the gene pool for the betterment of society.
Wow. Mr Compassion himself. Let's see.. Paying 3 cents more in your state taxes vs drowned child corpses floating around. Hmmm. I guess that's not much of a decision. Americans are known for only caring about money and posts like this are the evidence. If stupid people deserve to die, then I guess we should sentence all mentally retarded, or maybe even anyone with a tested IQ less than 120, to death then. It would save money in most cases and may even contribute to a more intelligent US population. Seems like win-win to me. Would you exempt pretty girls from this death sentence from stupidity though? After all there wouldn't be many attractive females left in this country if they all had to be intelligent.
Actually, according to Al Jazeera, they haven't decided whether to pursue the molestation charges or not. I wonder if the timing issue seems a little fishy to the new (presumably unbribed) prosecutor as well. I mean, you'd have to be a total idiot not to see the connection here. Maybe the prosecutor wants to investigate that angle a bit before deciding on whether to drop the whole case. If they do pursue "molestation" charges against him that will essentially be as bad as rape in the US where "molestation" means child molestation or child rape. As a smear campaign I think it has already been highly successful though. Assange *has* been discredited by this. He is now an alleged rapist/molester. He will always be one unless he is officially cleared of the charges by a court. And even then he will still be seen as one by most people. I have no doubt that US Intelligence agents are behind this. The victims may even be agents themselves. And I think the work is masterful. While the mission of silencing wikileaks has not yet been completed I highly doubt that the first stage of the operation has not been deemed a success by everyone involved. A warning shot has been fired and Assange has been (mostly) discredited. He has been given one last chance to save himself before the Stage 2 begins.
Who is blaming Al Jazeera? I just read that CNN article you linked to and there was no sign of anyone blaming Al Jazeera for anything. They just used them as a source. They seem to be one of the better sources in this case.
Yes. The director of the CIA will be blamed if Assange is still around to release more information in a week or two. Suspicion is not proof. As long as the agents don't get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the director has nothing to worry about. I don't care if Assange is killed by something as cliched as a car bomb. If there is no proof, the CIA will not have any problem. And neither will the director.
I would do it for a mere $100,000. For $5 million I would kill him myself. Although, just for the record, I think he should remain free and unharmed. However, I have no doubt that he will be silenced before he releases the rest of the documents. I think the US Military POV is that that information could endanger the lives of a lot of soldiers. I think they would rather just neutralize all of the wikileaks staff starting with Assange than possibly risk a lot more lives in ongoing military operations. If he is around long enough for the other documents to be released then all it shows is that the CIA is incompetent. But they will definitely try something. This was just the beginning. Probably a warning. One explanation for this is that the CIA doesn't actually enjoy killing non-violent civilians. They were probably hoping that his sense of self-preservation would override his ideals when the shit started meeting the fan blades. In other words maybe they at least wanted to give him the chance to submit or surrender. He has had his warning shot, and he has already boldly announced that he will still be releasing more information. He is going to be a martyr to those who believe, not only that information wants to be free, but that it ought to be set free. In any case even if he is killed tonight it will be done in such a way that it will look like a suicide or an accident and many of the posters in this thread will not believe that there is any foul play involved. In their eyes it will just be a demented, evil, psychopath who deserves a darwin award if it is some kind of freak accident or who was a coward for killing himself if it goes down as a suicide or who was a paranoid coward for running away if he vanishes without a trace. I am ashamed to even be of the same species as such people.
No you don't. Assange isn't safe from anything. You seriously believe the CIA cares that much about public opinion? Especially not when national security is at stake. The guy published classified documents about ongoing US military operations. You do that to a major world military power and you would have to be an idiot not to expect consequences. Serious ones. And now he is talking about releasing more documents in the next couple of weeks. He has definitely been deemed a major threat to US national security. But if Assange dies in a car accident this week that won't strike people like you as suspicious. You do realize that it is the job of the US military and the CIA to kill people. A great many of them in some cases. But people like you think mere character assassination is beyond them. Surely they would never stoop that low. Assange doesn't get a free pass for minor stuff like parking tickets. But if something major happens to him, like he is killed, commits suicide or murder, or gets into some kind of fatal accident, then yes people will be suspicious. I'm not sure how that helps Assange when he is dead or disappeared forever. You want to trade places with him though. I'm sure he would like that.
They get more publicity for being rapists and women hating sociopaths? Yeah. That's just what they are looking for I'm sure. Everyone will want to be associated with them then. Oh and Assange ends up in Swedish prison. Great plan. Face it. Sometimes the guy standing there in front of the dead body with the bloody knife in his hands really *is* the killer. The evidence against the US government is circumstantial but it is very strong. But you want to turn it on its head and say that the US Government is the one being framed. Uh huh.
Yeah right. Someone is going to accuse themselves of rape to discredit an organization that is just so admired around the world. God forbid they should be accused of doing something underhanded. That would ruin them! Of course the CIA is known for being so virtuous and pure as a lily that no one would ever believe such vicious slander. And he would go through all this effort, including possibly going to prison and forever destroying his own reputation around the world at a time when he happens to be running for his life from the strongest military power in the world. While he is seeking refuge. Again I think comments like these, especially the anonymous ones are a bit suspicious. Who do you work for again?
Why does it need to be done? The important thing is bringing North Korea into the modern world. To make the North Koreans productive again. Reunification is not necessary for that. Just economic reform. Of course the North Koreans have to want it and maybe they don't.
Except the nuclear weapons are the only reason they would invade Iran in the first place. It's not like the leader of Israel has threatened to destroy Iran at the first possible opportunity. Israel has had nukes for a long time now and they have never attacked anyone with them. To me it looks like Iran is intentionally trying to bait both Israel and the US into a conflict. Iran is essentially saying "Remember what we said about what we would do if we had nukes? Well we have them and we now have the means to deliver them. So what are you (Israel and maybe the US) planning to do about it?" It's a taunt. They are saying "Bring it on!". If I were an Israeli decision maker, I would definitely be considering military options at this point. Iran has sworn to destroy Israel at any cost, and now they are getting nukes. OTOH, maybe it is a trap.
It isn't a matter of calculation. The only evidence of Iranian thirst for Jewish blood is in their leader's announcement that he essentially plans to nuke Israel as soon as he has the capability. And he is getting closer. I was just thinking out loud about the difference between Hitler and the kind of president that would make such a statement. Since Persia has absolutely nothing to do with Palestine, I don't really understand the animosity unless it is based on a deep seated hatred for all things Jewish. Obviously Israel is no military light weight and they have been a member of the nuclear club for a hell of a lot longer than Iran. I highly doubt Iran would "win" in a nuclear war with Israel. As soon as any Israeli cities were destroyed, Iran would be mushroom clouds from horizon to horizon. If there is any country that really *needs* nuclear weapons it is Israel.
Slashdot Mirror
Big budget games pretty much have to be made for the majority. A small niche isn't going to cut it. You can't afford even the slightest chance that the game won't sell millions of copies because if it doesn't the company may fold. So it really makes sense that they should be "dumbed down" for the masses. As budgets go up, accessibility must go up as well. Most people just don't enjoy thinking. It isn't considered fun. It's too much work. It just makes people's heads hurt. So the designers have to make sure that the game is easy enough to play, ideally easy enough to use monkeys for play testing. When the game designer pictures who he is making the game for he should be picturing a monkey. Remember that you can never lose money by underestimating the intelligence of the general public, but you can lose enough to go out of business if you overestimate it. Big budget games are great if you are that monkey, but what if you are not? The consolization of PC games is all about embrace and extend: simplifying the game play as much as you possibly can so that there will be no barrier to entry for anyone who doesn't have severe mental retardation. When people who have had their brain removed have no problem playing and enjoying your game then you know you have a winner on your hands.
So in your view then any change to the rules is a step forward? Is there any kind of change that you would consider a step backward?
I didn't know Neverwinter Nights even had single player. Oh wait. You mean the remake of NWN from Bioware? I don't know why everyone has so little imagination that they have to keep reusing the same name. It doesn't bode well for the games themselves.
but I think they would be better off with somebody else in charge.
Especially now that he is an alleged rapist and molester and woman hating sociopath. Also with the largest military force in the world wanting him silenced I don't think he will be around much longer. So yeah. Wikileaks should start accepting applications. The ad will read: "Must be willing to die for free speech."
Assange flies on commercial aircraft. Too much collateral damage in this case. No reason to take out a whole plain full of civilians. A car accident or any kind of freak accident (someone mentioned falling down stairs) or just the old fashioned suicide with convincing note is more how they will play this one. Or maybe they will just kidnap him and seed some eyewitness reports that he was abducted by aliens. Actually if they can't figure out a way to get their hands on the insurance file they will almost certainly try to seize him and torture him for the info. Then they will probably make him dig his own grave and shoot him just like in the movies.
I think the US would certainly consider Sweden to be an ally. It may not have been the best choice for Assange however. Sweden may be a legal refuge but legality is *not* the issue here. Assange needs to disappear for a while (6 months minimum) until the US loses some interest in him. I think he'd be much better off in a country with no diplomatic relations with the US and no extradition treaty. He's relying too much on that insurance file to keep himself alive. Antarctica might be a good choice. Or buying a sailboat and heading for some uninhabited island in the South Pacific wouldn't be a bad idea. A remote village in the Himalayas perhaps. If course if intelligence agents managed to find him in some remote location they could just kill him and dispose of the body.
I didn't think we were losing that badly.
Also trees can block the signal. There are cases where you might have to actually climb a tree to get signal.
I would literally rather die than pay $2000 for a ride in an ambulance. I kid you not.
Stupid people do stupid things.
Only highly intelligent people realize that GPS recievers get their positional data from cell phone towers. So many idiots believe that those signals come from satellites up there in space. Boy are they stupid.
Personally...I wouldn't rescue them. They and their kids can die from their stupidity...means taking them/future progeny out of the gene pool for the betterment of society.
Wow. Mr Compassion himself. Let's see.. Paying 3 cents more in your state taxes vs drowned child corpses floating around. Hmmm. I guess that's not much of a decision. Americans are known for only caring about money and posts like this are the evidence. If stupid people deserve to die, then I guess we should sentence all mentally retarded, or maybe even anyone with a tested IQ less than 120, to death then. It would save money in most cases and may even contribute to a more intelligent US population. Seems like win-win to me. Would you exempt pretty girls from this death sentence from stupidity though? After all there wouldn't be many attractive females left in this country if they all had to be intelligent.
Actually, according to Al Jazeera, they haven't decided whether to pursue the molestation charges or not. I wonder if the timing issue seems a little fishy to the new (presumably unbribed) prosecutor as well. I mean, you'd have to be a total idiot not to see the connection here. Maybe the prosecutor wants to investigate that angle a bit before deciding on whether to drop the whole case. If they do pursue "molestation" charges against him that will essentially be as bad as rape in the US where "molestation" means child molestation or child rape. As a smear campaign I think it has already been highly successful though. Assange *has* been discredited by this. He is now an alleged rapist/molester. He will always be one unless he is officially cleared of the charges by a court. And even then he will still be seen as one by most people. I have no doubt that US Intelligence agents are behind this. The victims may even be agents themselves. And I think the work is masterful. While the mission of silencing wikileaks has not yet been completed I highly doubt that the first stage of the operation has not been deemed a success by everyone involved. A warning shot has been fired and Assange has been (mostly) discredited. He has been given one last chance to save himself before the Stage 2 begins.
Who is blaming Al Jazeera? I just read that CNN article you linked to and there was no sign of anyone blaming Al Jazeera for anything. They just used them as a source. They seem to be one of the better sources in this case.
Yes. The director of the CIA will be blamed if Assange is still around to release more information in a week or two. Suspicion is not proof. As long as the agents don't get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the director has nothing to worry about. I don't care if Assange is killed by something as cliched as a car bomb. If there is no proof, the CIA will not have any problem. And neither will the director.
I would do it for a mere $100,000. For $5 million I would kill him myself. Although, just for the record, I think he should remain free and unharmed. However, I have no doubt that he will be silenced before he releases the rest of the documents. I think the US Military POV is that that information could endanger the lives of a lot of soldiers. I think they would rather just neutralize all of the wikileaks staff starting with Assange than possibly risk a lot more lives in ongoing military operations. If he is around long enough for the other documents to be released then all it shows is that the CIA is incompetent. But they will definitely try something. This was just the beginning. Probably a warning. One explanation for this is that the CIA doesn't actually enjoy killing non-violent civilians. They were probably hoping that his sense of self-preservation would override his ideals when the shit started meeting the fan blades. In other words maybe they at least wanted to give him the chance to submit or surrender. He has had his warning shot, and he has already boldly announced that he will still be releasing more information. He is going to be a martyr to those who believe, not only that information wants to be free, but that it ought to be set free. In any case even if he is killed tonight it will be done in such a way that it will look like a suicide or an accident and many of the posters in this thread will not believe that there is any foul play involved. In their eyes it will just be a demented, evil, psychopath who deserves a darwin award if it is some kind of freak accident or who was a coward for killing himself if it goes down as a suicide or who was a paranoid coward for running away if he vanishes without a trace. I am ashamed to even be of the same species as such people.
For all we know this whole scheme was her hare-brained idea.
And what if they didn't get caught?
Man, I wish I was that bulletproof.
No you don't. Assange isn't safe from anything. You seriously believe the CIA cares that much about public opinion? Especially not when national security is at stake. The guy published classified documents about ongoing US military operations. You do that to a major world military power and you would have to be an idiot not to expect consequences. Serious ones. And now he is talking about releasing more documents in the next couple of weeks. He has definitely been deemed a major threat to US national security. But if Assange dies in a car accident this week that won't strike people like you as suspicious. You do realize that it is the job of the US military and the CIA to kill people. A great many of them in some cases. But people like you think mere character assassination is beyond them. Surely they would never stoop that low. Assange doesn't get a free pass for minor stuff like parking tickets. But if something major happens to him, like he is killed, commits suicide or murder, or gets into some kind of fatal accident, then yes people will be suspicious. I'm not sure how that helps Assange when he is dead or disappeared forever. You want to trade places with him though. I'm sure he would like that.
They get more publicity for being rapists and women hating sociopaths? Yeah. That's just what they are looking for I'm sure. Everyone will want to be associated with them then. Oh and Assange ends up in Swedish prison. Great plan. Face it. Sometimes the guy standing there in front of the dead body with the bloody knife in his hands really *is* the killer. The evidence against the US government is circumstantial but it is very strong. But you want to turn it on its head and say that the US Government is the one being framed. Uh huh.
Yeah right. Someone is going to accuse themselves of rape to discredit an organization that is just so admired around the world. God forbid they should be accused of doing something underhanded. That would ruin them! Of course the CIA is known for being so virtuous and pure as a lily that no one would ever believe such vicious slander. And he would go through all this effort, including possibly going to prison and forever destroying his own reputation around the world at a time when he happens to be running for his life from the strongest military power in the world. While he is seeking refuge. Again I think comments like these, especially the anonymous ones are a bit suspicious. Who do you work for again?
Do you work for the government by any chance? Just curious. I don't believe you actually believe what you are saying.
Why does it need to be done? The important thing is bringing North Korea into the modern world. To make the North Koreans productive again. Reunification is not necessary for that. Just economic reform. Of course the North Koreans have to want it and maybe they don't.
Were you there during these high level discussions?
Except the nuclear weapons are the only reason they would invade Iran in the first place. It's not like the leader of Israel has threatened to destroy Iran at the first possible opportunity. Israel has had nukes for a long time now and they have never attacked anyone with them. To me it looks like Iran is intentionally trying to bait both Israel and the US into a conflict. Iran is essentially saying "Remember what we said about what we would do if we had nukes? Well we have them and we now have the means to deliver them. So what are you (Israel and maybe the US) planning to do about it?" It's a taunt. They are saying "Bring it on!". If I were an Israeli decision maker, I would definitely be considering military options at this point. Iran has sworn to destroy Israel at any cost, and now they are getting nukes. OTOH, maybe it is a trap.
It isn't a matter of calculation. The only evidence of Iranian thirst for Jewish blood is in their leader's announcement that he essentially plans to nuke Israel as soon as he has the capability. And he is getting closer. I was just thinking out loud about the difference between Hitler and the kind of president that would make such a statement. Since Persia has absolutely nothing to do with Palestine, I don't really understand the animosity unless it is based on a deep seated hatred for all things Jewish. Obviously Israel is no military light weight and they have been a member of the nuclear club for a hell of a lot longer than Iran. I highly doubt Iran would "win" in a nuclear war with Israel. As soon as any Israeli cities were destroyed, Iran would be mushroom clouds from horizon to horizon. If there is any country that really *needs* nuclear weapons it is Israel.