You're right - in my frustration with this game, I neglected to include something about the mechanics of the classes in my not-so-long rant, which would've made my post more germane. But I still think the post is of interest to anyone who is considering buying the game, so I assert that it is not irrelevant.
How about this? For some inexplicable reason, the developers of TSL erased one key difference between the three non-prestige Jedi classes (Guardian, Consular and Sentinel), and this (as far as I know) carries over to the prestige classes. All classes apparently receive the same "base attack bonus" (a measure of your character's ability to hit an opponent) increment per-level, which was one fairly major differentiator between the classes in the original game. So, if you're making a pen and paper character, you may wish to rethink this weird decision, and perhaps give your weapon masters a bigger bonus, or scale down the bonus for the other characters. Also, the implementations of some of the prestige class powers in the game are buggy (the "Fury" ability of the sith marauder was, I believe), so if you're basing your P&P character on the effectiveness of your in-game character, you may want to keep that in mind. There were also some very questionable implementations of basic combat mechanics (defense, for instance, if you look in the message log for a breakdown of the automatic calculations), so that's another thing to keep in mind.
"The Sith Lords" was a promising but horribly flawed game, with very little polish and a cut ending. The game was apparently made on a very tight schedule, and essentially the last 25% of the game is simply not there, which is a major disservice to the people who coughed up the cash for the game. See this article, for instance. Until Obsidian/Lucas Arts add a major patch which adds content to the end-game, it's not worth the time investment. It's a pity, since the game has some very good moments, and clearly, at least some of the designers put a lot of thought and effort into what they were doing.
There are also some community efforts to polish up the game and fix bugs and restore at least some of the cut content, but without the voiceovers and cut scenes and so on, I'm sure it will be a tough task.
I don't see a patch (just tried the auto-updater), and neither obsidian's site nor Lucas Arts's page mention a patch - obsidian's site says something about a "patch coming soon". Obsidian's support forum has an interesting thread about the audio in the game - apparently the music in the game is 10kHz Mono, encoded at 48kbps, which is a travesty. This might have been because of xbox constraints, but feh - couldn't they have supplied quality stuff for PCs? And apparently the xbox can handle higher quality streams as well, so perhaps it was just sheer incompetence.
Not sure how the old outsourcing discussion cropped up in this story, but I'll take a shot. My stance is this: from what I know, H1-Bs actually cost *more* to hire than citizens, because of all the fees associated with navigating the gigantic immigration bureaucracy we're blessed with. So, logically, the people who enter this country through such a tortuous process must be worth the trouble. What we should be doing as far as immigration is concerned is thoroughly closing the border down south, eliminating the "bring the extended family over on green cards" loophole, and getting qualified professionals like those who enter on the H1-B program instead, making the immigration process easier for skilled workers. My 2c, FWIW.
Well, you're lucky you managed to get the game to acknowledge you won a race. There are a couple of bugs that I've encountered with swoop racing on Telos (I've basically stopped playing at this point, due to complete dissatisfaction with the product, not just bug related - the story isn't cohesive at all).
If you happen to ever forfeit a race (by hitting escape then F, as I recall), the PC version of the games gets into a state where it thinks you've forfeited all races..even if you happen to score the top score.
Even if you don't forfeit a race, the current state of my game is that a winning time is never acknowledged. I got a time of 44 seconds on my second try (I didn't try for the top score, but 44 seconds wasn't too hard), and the very bland (compare to the Hutt on tattoine in KotOR1, for instance - all the KotOR2 characters seem quite 2-dimensional in comparison) swoop racing official says "nice try but you didn't beat any records"; however, when you ask him to list the track records, your name comes up. Which is nice and all, but you don't get any reward for winning, or the adulation of the masses (if they bothered to code any of that..I tend to doubt it).
My first observation is that you seem to have something of a personal grudge against the series - was this because of the supposed resemblance between DS9 and B5? You name a few bad apples, certainly, but if you can't name the numerous good ones that outweigh the bad Ferenghi-style stuff, you're being far from objective. My second observation is that if you don't realize Trials and Tribble-ations was a farce, you must take everything completely literally. Must be hard if you ever watch the Daily Show.
Personally, I thought "Trials" was hilarious - heavily nostalgic, it was quite self-consciously poking fun at Trek tropes, and addressing various discrepancies between ToS and the later Treks in a tongue-in-cheek fashion ("and women wore..less", "We do not speak of it (the old-style Klingon look))." It was a joke, son. And I'm far from the only one who thinks so - take a look at this review, for instance.
I liked B5 too - especially where it borrowed from Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man", such as the episode where a mind-wiped criminal is hunted down and slain by the families of his victims ("passing through gethsemane", I believe). However, glancing at the Lurker's guide, I can spot a few lemons, and glaring inconsistencies as well. And generally, the B5 universe never felt coherent to me, in terms of geography (or galactography, if you will), technology and evolution. Where star trek substituted technobabble, most often nonsensically, but occasionally in a somewhat sensible fashion (I'm a scientist), B5 went completely in the other direction, in the Clarke-ian advanced-technology-as-magic direction. First ones, Shadows, Vorlons, there seemed to be no limit to what they could accomplish, and that alone created a few plot holes in the "why couldn't they have done this at that point" sense. Plus, it's supposed to be science fiction, and besides the medical stuff, there just wasn't a lot of scientific extrapolation. On the other hand, Trek is quite inconsistent with its use of technology to so...eh. But we're discussing DS9
Let me address the straw man argument from your first paragraph. Have you seen "The Visitor", "Far Beyond the Stars", "In the Pale Moonlight", "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" and many other episodes of similar quality? The first is a personal favorite, along with TNG's "The Inner Light". The acting and characterization were superb (I believe the episode won awards), and what's more, it was a uniquely science-fictional story, not something random turned into SF by subsituting ray guns for pistols. Moving stuff, and a great example of what SF can bring to television. "In the Pale Moonlight", part of the Dominion war arc, describes the exigencies of war, and the whole ends-versus-means question, and is applicable to any society. We fudged the WMD intelligence (or at least, there were several credible reports that the administration was exerting great pressure on the CIA to present favorable reports), presumably in view of a greater cause, and this episode addressed similar issues, and showed quite plausibly what even good people can do when faced with destruction. I could go on and on, but you can read the story summaries and watch the episodes for yourself. I just can't take you seriously when you have such a selective memory (or perhaps you caught 1 episode in 3) of the series.
Oh sure, the disappearance of 2800 ships was literally a deus ex machina - but as the show was described, it was well within the technological capabilities of the aliens. The writers could've made it clearer what exactly this choice cost Sisko, but that went beyond the end of the series. It was on par with all the mystical "The First One" stuff after the Z'aha'Dum episode in B5, but I didn't mind. The holodeck episodes were filler, yes - but you seem to have forgotten that TNG had its fair share and more of those. What I saw of Voyager was complete dreck, but as I haven't seen it in its entirety, I'm not going to comment beyond saying t
Nonsense - DS9 had a slow start, but the later seasons had some of the most intelligent SF ever seen on television, exploring fairly complex ethical and social issues.
I must say, I'm a tad surprised at the nomination of Knights of the Old Republic 2. Admittedly, I'm only halfway through the game at this point (playing intermittently over a period of months), but IMO the game is a pale shadow of the original Bioware title.
The story seems to lack cohesion with the original's (which was a satisfying Star Wars style archetypal good vs. evil thing - simplistic perhaps, but fun), and they apparently failed to run the game's dialog through a spellchecker, let alone a grammar checker. This ruins the sense of immersion, for me at any rate. There are several seemingly gaping plot holes, that I'll detail in a reply, for anyone who's interested (some mild spoilers, so I'll leave it for now). Also, the music is quite banal compared to the original's haunting melodies (Jeremy Soule did the first one's music, I believe - not sure if it's him again, or someone else, but I liked his music in Dungeon siege too). You'd think that building on KotOR1's game engine would result in fewer bugs, but that's sadly not true either - I've already encountered a few (generally minor, but very annoying).
Re:No moral values ever stood a thousand years
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I've pointed out the gaping flaws in what passes for logic in your arguments several times, but you persist in wilfully ignoring them. I will try one last time.
You say that you are opposed to forced slavery. I have pointed out the section in Exodus twice, where it says that children born to a slave are born into slavery. Do the children have a choice about this? Did they have any debts to pay off? Are they the property of the slave that somehow become the property of the master? No. This is forced slavery, and it is a great evil by any civilized standard. And the only time you touched upon this, you stated it was "regrettable" and a consequence of the "voluntary slavery" which you seem to fantasize about, despite much evidence to the contrary that most of the slaves in Biblical times did not volunteer to be slaves. And if you respond to this, respond to the issue of how, by any civilized standards of decency, it is okay for the Bible to say that children of slaves will be slaves. Note that the Bible does not distinguish between so-called "voluntary" servitude and forced servitude. Even if a slave is a Hebrew as in this case, and he has children, the children end up being slaves, and that is fine with Biblical law. This is wholly evil. Address this when you prate on slavery - this *is* forced slavery of an *innocent* child, and it was historical reality. If Biblical law was just and good, it should have stated that children of slaves should be born free. Indeed, it should've stated that the taking of slaves should be illegal. But as the quote from
You also ignore the issue of forced slavery in Deuteronomy:
"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered [a city] into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee"
i.e. the old testament god points to a city and tells his people to go conquer it and kill all the men and enslave the women and children. This isn't forced slavery eh? Address this if you
respond.
It is all too clear that the god of the Old Testament had the moral values of a 2 year old - kill anyone who is not "chosen" by an accident of birth, and enslave the rest. This god was wholly evil.
There are some very moving and beautiful sections in the New Testament, but they are also sullied by the sections on slavery and the fact that nowhere is forced slavery condemned at all. A "thou shalt not enslave another human being" would go a long way towards convincing me, but it does not exist. If you believe in this stuff and attempt to justify it, you partake in its iniquity, and deserve condemnation. We are not talking about some far off theory here - all these passages were used to condone slavery by Southern churches just as you astonishingly attempt to do in this day and age.
Let's come to the issue of treatment of slaves - even you seem to admit that this is allowed in the Bible as clearly stated ((Exodus 21:20-21). Any civilized person would agree that a law which allows a master to beat a slave (setting aside the larger evil of slavery) to within an inch of death and go scot free is morally bankrupt. Thus, this particular "law of Moses" is morally bankrupt, and calls the rest of the arbitrary house of cards into question.
My version of the Truth is that we don't need a book written in a barbaric era by people who could not dream of a better age to teach us morality. Yes, morality is eternal in the sense that enlightened thinkers across the ages have always held similar conceptions of what is right and what is wrong. This is because morality flows from human empathy, which is absent only in the most evil of humans (read slave owners, murderers and the like). Altruism and empathy ("do unto thy neighbor what you would have them do unto you") should form the core of human justice, not some flawed document penned by people unable to look beyond the cruelties of the age.
Re:No moral values ever stood a thousand years
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Hmm, even though I deplore your language, I have to agree with your sentiments. Voisine is an unthinking fanatic, and it is a sad state of affairs that he can hold his cruel, dangerous and misguided beliefs and presumably raise a family and bring up his children with the same horrific values.
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What a twisted mind you must have, to believe that there are situations where it is acceptable for children to be enslaved, or for that matter for any person to be enslaved. Why doesn't the Bible just categorically say that "children must no be enslaved"? I wouldn't have this reaction if that were the case. I find your attempts to support this horrific act extremely distasteful. I shudder to think of what other misguided beliefs you hold dear. "It's similar to employment with longer terms" - haha..I suppose if your employer can get away with beating you and mutilating you. It appalls and disgusts me that you haven't come out and condemned slavery, and attempt to justify the enslavement of children. It's a good thing that this country was founded by rational men who believed in the separation of church and state.
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If you accept those verses (instead of discounting them, like the enlightened Christians I know), I'm afraid you do not belong in civilized society. "Servants should love their master" eh? What if the master is cruel and unjust (as the verse says)? Forget that, slavery is an abomination, no need to mince words. So the master-slave relationship is acceptable to you? And you still haven't responded to what I said about children being born into slavery, and about the Bible's advocacy of beating slaves to near-death, just stopping short of killing them. True barbarism by any standard. In the Old Testament, God was going around killing people for various minor offenses, condoning slavery, amputation of body parts and so on. That's not the sort of God I'd want to worship by any stretch of the imagination. If you weren't brainwashed, neither would you.
I admire some of the teachings attributed to Christ in the New Testament, but the New Testament has its fair share of slavery related verses which are conveniently ignored. What do you have to say to this stuff about master-slave relationships?
"Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ."
(Ephesians 6:5)
"Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don't work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord."
(Colassians 3:22)
"Slaves are to be submissive to their masters in everything, and to be well-pleasing, not talking back."
(Titus 2:9)
"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel. "
(1 Peter 2:18)
So yes, the Bible supports the barbaric and inhumane institution of slavery, and encourages slaves to submit themselves to their masters, even the cruel ones. There's nothing about love etc. here (not that would excuse any of it..), it's all about fear.
Oh, how about women's rights? Let's see..
"Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says."
(1 Corinthians 14:34)
Women should be silent eh? It wouldn't surprise me if you believed that too.
Re:No moral values ever stood a thousand years
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Colin Powell Resigns
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You forgot the rest of the quotation (or perhaps you didn't but accept it, in which case I would find *you* an abomination). Here it is, in its entirety:
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18:1). "If a man also lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13).
So yes, the Bible says that homosexuals must be put to death! I'd like to see your argument in favor of that, please.
Re:No moral values ever stood a thousand years
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Colin Powell Resigns
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You have a remarkable capacity for self-delusion. If that's what you call "clear reasoning", I think, as one poster above pointed out, that you need to acquire some critical thinking skills. I am willing to listen to what you say - indeed, I am trying to help you "understand this" as you say condescendingly.
Let me bring up the points you did not address first, and then rebut your "counter-arguments". What of the verse that says slaves should treat masters as they would Christ Himself? Doesn't that trouble you in the least? It is equating the master-slave relationship with the relationship between man and God. If you don't find that troubling, I won't bother arguing any more. And if you don't find the verse that says it's okay to beat slaves as long as they don't die appalling, I don't know what to say.
Sure, the way the world works innocence and leading a blameless life is no guarantee that you will not face hardships. But think about this: the Bible is saying it is *okay*, indeed that it is allowed that innocent children will be born into slavery. Shouldn't it say that the child of a slave should be free of slavery? Why is it promulgating slavery of innocent children in the first place? That is "involuntary slavery" by any measure. You are blind indeed if you still persist in arguing otherwise. Shouldn't the Bible of all books speak out against such abhorrent practices?
Note that in all of these, the Bible never says that slavery is wrong, and indeed, that you *should* acquire slaves, preferably from the "heathen":
"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids" (Leviticus 25:44).
And let's see what the Bible has to say about slavery and warfare:
"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered [a city] into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee" (Deuteronomy 20:13-14).
Oh yeah, kill all the males. Great example of Christian mercy there. Then take all the women and children as slaves. I'm sure they all volunteered to be slaves.
Now, you probably say that you accept that slavery is wrong. Doesn't that say that our moral values are better than those of the Israelites and other paragons of virtue in the Bible?
Re:No moral values ever stood a thousand years
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Interesting sophistry. Do you imagine the daughter had any choice as to her occupation as a slave-wife? Notice that the Bible does not speak out against the practice of selling your daughter into slavery, or polygamy (which you evade by use of the phrase "gets someone else"). Read the quote carefully: it says that if the slave has borne *children* the children will belong to the slave owner. How do you explain that? An innocent child is born into slavery, and this is condoned by the Bible..how does that fit in with civilized values? If you still persist in naivete, here are some more quotes.
On slaves attitude towards masters - they must fear and obey them, and treat them as they would Christ Himself:
"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Peter 2:18). "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ" (Ephesians 6:5).
Oh, and it also condones corporeal punishment (including mutilation and so on, common practice in the slave states) of slaves, as long as they don't die.
"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money" (Exodus 21:20-21).
Re:No moral values ever stood a thousand years
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Colin Powell Resigns
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Where are these eternal and immutable "God's laws" codified by the way? In the Bible? I'm curious to see how you wriggle out of the dilemma posed by these choice quotes from the Bible, apropos slavery and polygamy.
"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever" (Exodus 21:2-6).
How about this, which condones selling your daughter into slavery, and polygamy as well?
"And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation, he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife: her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish"
I point these out, because they were used by southern Churches to justify slavery during the Civil war, and more recently, to justify apartheid.
Slavery was a moral value that "served" civilization for thousands of years. Indeed, southern churches cited the Bible when attempting to justify the institution of slavery, in the face of "more recent notions". I suppose that sort of fundamentalist thinking is now brushed off as the "exception to the rule", now that even the fundamentalists cannot afford to be racists. What hypocrisy.
Well said. I don't believe any intelligence gap exists between classic Republicans and "liberals" (I don't believe Bush qualifies as a "Goldwater Republican" though, by any means), at least the ones who have thought through their positions rather than voting due to tradition.
However, one inference that I have drawn from various statistical analyses of Bush's support base (the "Red States"), is that there's a good deal of hypocrisy (unconscious, or otherwise) among those who vote reflexively Republican in those states, and advance cliched arguments along the lines of "Democrats are the types who want to live off welfare" or argue that their "moral values" are superior to those of "Massachusetts liberals".
For instance, take a look at this page. An excerpt:
"The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000. Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States. Here are the Top 10 states that feed at the federal trough (with Red States highlighted in bold)".
I think most people realize unconsciously that the coastal economies subsidize the less densely populated "heartland" (I know this is somewhat simplistic but it's essentially true IMO), but the extent and distribution is surprising.
The other interesting (but not-so-surprising) bit of info was on divorce rates tabulated by state. An excerpt:
"The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people." The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont." There are various possible reasons for this (including people marrying younger and so on), but certainly the "sanctity of marriage" is far more at risk in the Bible belt than in the east.
I know that your type probably doesn't have the capacity to understand any of this, but here's a link just in case.
Here's an excerpt:
The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000. Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States. Here are the Top 10 states that feed at the federal trough (with Red States highlighted in bold):
To the original poster: if you read this, I know it's a depressing time and you may wish that the South had seceded after all. But don't give up hope - there are still people in America who understand the weight of history and what the phrases "land of the free", and "truth, justice and the american way" really mean. Stand fast, the future is not lost.
Hey moron - the parent poster made a heartfelt statement, and you resort to obscenities - why not give him/her a cogent argument instead?
Let me remind you that most of the Blue states have a positive federal tax ratio (i.e. they pay much more in taxes than they get in return), unlike many of your precious red states - only Texas in that lot has a productive work culture. The rest leech off the economies of the blue states, which puts paid to your nonsense about "the work that has made this country great". Now please go and worship at the altar of Bush and await the day this great country which has survived so much is renamed "Jesusland".
To compare Iraq to Germany or Japan is pure obscurantism. Firstly, the war against the Axis was justified according to the "just war" theory (I suggest you read up on this), unlike Iraq. Both countries had industrial economies that were devastated by the war (bombed into rubble). Industrial economies rely heavily on both basic infrastructure and higher level infrastructure, all of which take time to rebuild.
"Wars are a disruptive societal force. That's why they are generally bad. Unfortunately, at times they are necessary" - this is true in the general case, but it certainly wasn't "necessary" by any means for Iraq. You seem to believe the propaganda that this war was for the benefit of the "Iraqi people" - it was not. I suggest you read this link, which along with Paul O'Neill's (former Bush cabinet member)testimony provides sufficient evidence that Bush Jr. planned to invade Iraq as early as 1999. 9/11 merely provided camouflage and a cassus belli to deceive the sadly trusting public.
And no, despite what you may have heard from Cheney, Iraq is not linked to 9/11.
This is true - a Bush biographer has come out with the story, and this corroborates what Paul O'Neill has said as well. See this article for more information.
Here's an excerpt:
Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
After reading about this bit of shameful opportunism at the expense of so many lives, I wonder how anyone can contemplate voting for Bush.
"That group" was no more than a proxy with a calculated smear. The members of SBVFT have repeatedly contradicted themselves, and provided what can only be described as untruthful statements. I suggest you read this analysis of the attacks by the SBVFT - they provide an utterly convincing rebuttal.
In other words, you sir, are a troll - while there are veterans who may oppose Kerry for his protests against the Vietnam war (and perhaps even rightfully so, since he seems to have branded everyone there with the "atrocity" brush), the swifties were merely a proxy for a wealthy republican who wanted to attack Kerry on his strengths, a classic Karl Rove tactic.
If we're going to judge the candidates by their actions 30 years ago, I'd rather support a war veteran than someone who evaded foreign service, and will not deny that he has used cocaine (his statement was that "he could pass a drug test at the time of his Pres. Bush Sr.'s administration"), or a team that between them have 3 DUIs (Cheney 2, Bush Jr. 1).
Slashdot Mirror
How about this? For some inexplicable reason, the developers of TSL erased one key difference between the three non-prestige Jedi classes (Guardian, Consular and Sentinel), and this (as far as I know) carries over to the prestige classes. All classes apparently receive the same "base attack bonus" (a measure of your character's ability to hit an opponent) increment per-level, which was one fairly major differentiator between the classes in the original game. So, if you're making a pen and paper character, you may wish to rethink this weird decision, and perhaps give your weapon masters a bigger bonus, or scale down the bonus for the other characters. Also, the implementations of some of the prestige class powers in the game are buggy (the "Fury" ability of the sith marauder was, I believe), so if you're basing your P&P character on the effectiveness of your in-game character, you may want to keep that in mind. There were also some very questionable implementations of basic combat mechanics (defense, for instance, if you look in the message log for a breakdown of the automatic calculations), so that's another thing to keep in mind.
There are also some community efforts to polish up the game and fix bugs and restore at least some of the cut content, but without the voiceovers and cut scenes and so on, I'm sure it will be a tough task.
Is OO running setuid root for some reason?
I don't see a patch (just tried the auto-updater), and neither obsidian's site nor Lucas Arts's page mention a patch - obsidian's site says something about a "patch coming soon". Obsidian's support forum has an interesting thread about the audio in the game - apparently the music in the game is 10kHz Mono, encoded at 48kbps, which is a travesty. This might have been because of xbox constraints, but feh - couldn't they have supplied quality stuff for PCs? And apparently the xbox can handle higher quality streams as well, so perhaps it was just sheer incompetence.
Not sure how the old outsourcing discussion cropped up in this story, but I'll take a shot. My stance is this: from what I know, H1-Bs actually cost *more* to hire than citizens, because of all the fees associated with navigating the gigantic immigration bureaucracy we're blessed with. So, logically, the people who enter this country through such a tortuous process must be worth the trouble. What we should be doing as far as immigration is concerned is thoroughly closing the border down south, eliminating the "bring the extended family over on green cards" loophole, and getting qualified professionals like those who enter on the H1-B program instead, making the immigration process easier for skilled workers. My 2c, FWIW.
- If you happen to ever forfeit a race (by hitting escape then F, as I recall), the PC version of the games gets into a state where it thinks you've forfeited all races..even if you happen to score the top score.
- Even if you don't forfeit a race, the current state of my game is that a winning time is never acknowledged. I got a time of 44 seconds on my second try (I didn't try for the top score, but 44 seconds wasn't too hard), and the very bland (compare to the Hutt on tattoine in KotOR1, for instance - all the KotOR2 characters seem quite 2-dimensional in comparison) swoop racing official says "nice try but you didn't beat any records"; however, when you ask him to list the track records, your name comes up. Which is nice and all, but you don't get any reward for winning, or the adulation of the masses (if they bothered to code any of that..I tend to doubt it).
Also, see this thread on the game"Smash a baryon"? Why is that essential? I thought this was synchrotron radiation from accelerated electrons..
Personally, I thought "Trials" was hilarious - heavily nostalgic, it was quite self-consciously poking fun at Trek tropes, and addressing various discrepancies between ToS and the later Treks in a tongue-in-cheek fashion ("and women wore..less", "We do not speak of it (the old-style Klingon look))." It was a joke, son. And I'm far from the only one who thinks so - take a look at this review, for instance.
I liked B5 too - especially where it borrowed from Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man", such as the episode where a mind-wiped criminal is hunted down and slain by the families of his victims ("passing through gethsemane", I believe). However, glancing at the Lurker's guide, I can spot a few lemons, and glaring inconsistencies as well. And generally, the B5 universe never felt coherent to me, in terms of geography (or galactography, if you will), technology and evolution. Where star trek substituted technobabble, most often nonsensically, but occasionally in a somewhat sensible fashion (I'm a scientist), B5 went completely in the other direction, in the Clarke-ian advanced-technology-as-magic direction. First ones, Shadows, Vorlons, there seemed to be no limit to what they could accomplish, and that alone created a few plot holes in the "why couldn't they have done this at that point" sense. Plus, it's supposed to be science fiction, and besides the medical stuff, there just wasn't a lot of scientific extrapolation. On the other hand, Trek is quite inconsistent with its use of technology to so...eh. But we're discussing DS9
Let me address the straw man argument from your first paragraph. Have you seen "The Visitor", "Far Beyond the Stars", "In the Pale Moonlight", "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" and many other episodes of similar quality? The first is a personal favorite, along with TNG's "The Inner Light". The acting and characterization were superb (I believe the episode won awards), and what's more, it was a uniquely science-fictional story, not something random turned into SF by subsituting ray guns for pistols. Moving stuff, and a great example of what SF can bring to television. "In the Pale Moonlight", part of the Dominion war arc, describes the exigencies of war, and the whole ends-versus-means question, and is applicable to any society. We fudged the WMD intelligence (or at least, there were several credible reports that the administration was exerting great pressure on the CIA to present favorable reports), presumably in view of a greater cause, and this episode addressed similar issues, and showed quite plausibly what even good people can do when faced with destruction. I could go on and on, but you can read the story summaries and watch the episodes for yourself. I just can't take you seriously when you have such a selective memory (or perhaps you caught 1 episode in 3) of the series.
Oh sure, the disappearance of 2800 ships was literally a deus ex machina - but as the show was described, it was well within the technological capabilities of the aliens. The writers could've made it clearer what exactly this choice cost Sisko, but that went beyond the end of the series. It was on par with all the mystical "The First One" stuff after the Z'aha'Dum episode in B5, but I didn't mind. The holodeck episodes were filler, yes - but you seem to have forgotten that TNG had its fair share and more of those. What I saw of Voyager was complete dreck, but as I haven't seen it in its entirety, I'm not going to comment beyond saying t
Nonsense - DS9 had a slow start, but the later seasons had some of the most intelligent SF ever seen on television, exploring fairly complex ethical and social issues.
The story seems to lack cohesion with the original's (which was a satisfying Star Wars style archetypal good vs. evil thing - simplistic perhaps, but fun), and they apparently failed to run the game's dialog through a spellchecker, let alone a grammar checker. This ruins the sense of immersion, for me at any rate. There are several seemingly gaping plot holes, that I'll detail in a reply, for anyone who's interested (some mild spoilers, so I'll leave it for now). Also, the music is quite banal compared to the original's haunting melodies (Jeremy Soule did the first one's music, I believe - not sure if it's him again, or someone else, but I liked his music in Dungeon siege too). You'd think that building on KotOR1's game engine would result in fewer bugs, but that's sadly not true either - I've already encountered a few (generally minor, but very annoying).
You say that you are opposed to forced slavery. I have pointed out the section in Exodus twice, where it says that children born to a slave are born into slavery. Do the children have a choice about this? Did they have any debts to pay off? Are they the property of the slave that somehow become the property of the master? No. This is forced slavery, and it is a great evil by any civilized standard. And the only time you touched upon this, you stated it was "regrettable" and a consequence of the "voluntary slavery" which you seem to fantasize about, despite much evidence to the contrary that most of the slaves in Biblical times did not volunteer to be slaves. And if you respond to this, respond to the issue of how, by any civilized standards of decency, it is okay for the Bible to say that children of slaves will be slaves. Note that the Bible does not distinguish between so-called "voluntary" servitude and forced servitude. Even if a slave is a Hebrew as in this case, and he has children, the children end up being slaves, and that is fine with Biblical law. This is wholly evil. Address this when you prate on slavery - this *is* forced slavery of an *innocent* child, and it was historical reality. If Biblical law was just and good, it should have stated that children of slaves should be born free. Indeed, it should've stated that the taking of slaves should be illegal. But as the quote from
You also ignore the issue of forced slavery in Deuteronomy: "And when the Lord thy God hath delivered [a city] into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee" i.e. the old testament god points to a city and tells his people to go conquer it and kill all the men and enslave the women and children. This isn't forced slavery eh? Address this if you respond.
It is all too clear that the god of the Old Testament had the moral values of a 2 year old - kill anyone who is not "chosen" by an accident of birth, and enslave the rest. This god was wholly evil.
There are some very moving and beautiful sections in the New Testament, but they are also sullied by the sections on slavery and the fact that nowhere is forced slavery condemned at all. A "thou shalt not enslave another human being" would go a long way towards convincing me, but it does not exist. If you believe in this stuff and attempt to justify it, you partake in its iniquity, and deserve condemnation. We are not talking about some far off theory here - all these passages were used to condone slavery by Southern churches just as you astonishingly attempt to do in this day and age.
Let's come to the issue of treatment of slaves - even you seem to admit that this is allowed in the Bible as clearly stated ((Exodus 21:20-21). Any civilized person would agree that a law which allows a master to beat a slave (setting aside the larger evil of slavery) to within an inch of death and go scot free is morally bankrupt. Thus, this particular "law of Moses" is morally bankrupt, and calls the rest of the arbitrary house of cards into question.
My version of the Truth is that we don't need a book written in a barbaric era by people who could not dream of a better age to teach us morality. Yes, morality is eternal in the sense that enlightened thinkers across the ages have always held similar conceptions of what is right and what is wrong. This is because morality flows from human empathy, which is absent only in the most evil of humans (read slave owners, murderers and the like). Altruism and empathy ("do unto thy neighbor what you would have them do unto you") should form the core of human justice, not some flawed document penned by people unable to look beyond the cruelties of the age.
Hmm, even though I deplore your language, I have to agree with your sentiments. Voisine is an unthinking fanatic, and it is a sad state of affairs that he can hold his cruel, dangerous and misguided beliefs and presumably raise a family and bring up his children with the same horrific values.
What a twisted mind you must have, to believe that there are situations where it is acceptable for children to be enslaved, or for that matter for any person to be enslaved. Why doesn't the Bible just categorically say that "children must no be enslaved"? I wouldn't have this reaction if that were the case. I find your attempts to support this horrific act extremely distasteful. I shudder to think of what other misguided beliefs you hold dear. "It's similar to employment with longer terms" - haha..I suppose if your employer can get away with beating you and mutilating you. It appalls and disgusts me that you haven't come out and condemned slavery, and attempt to justify the enslavement of children. It's a good thing that this country was founded by rational men who believed in the separation of church and state.
I admire some of the teachings attributed to Christ in the New Testament, but the New Testament has its fair share of slavery related verses which are conveniently ignored. What do you have to say to this stuff about master-slave relationships?
"Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ." (Ephesians 6:5) "Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don't work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord." (Colassians 3:22) "Slaves are to be submissive to their masters in everything, and to be well-pleasing, not talking back ."
(Titus 2:9)
"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel. "
(1 Peter 2:18)
So yes, the Bible supports the barbaric and inhumane institution of slavery, and encourages slaves to submit themselves to their masters, even the cruel ones. There's nothing about love etc. here (not that would excuse any of it..), it's all about fear.
Oh, how about women's rights? Let's see.. "Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says." (1 Corinthians 14:34)
Women should be silent eh? It wouldn't surprise me if you believed that too.
You forgot the rest of the quotation (or perhaps you didn't but accept it, in which case I would find *you* an abomination). Here it is, in its entirety: And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18:1). "If a man also lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13). So yes, the Bible says that homosexuals must be put to death! I'd like to see your argument in favor of that, please.
Let me bring up the points you did not address first, and then rebut your "counter-arguments". What of the verse that says slaves should treat masters as they would Christ Himself? Doesn't that trouble you in the least? It is equating the master-slave relationship with the relationship between man and God. If you don't find that troubling, I won't bother arguing any more. And if you don't find the verse that says it's okay to beat slaves as long as they don't die appalling, I don't know what to say.
Sure, the way the world works innocence and leading a blameless life is no guarantee that you will not face hardships. But think about this: the Bible is saying it is *okay*, indeed that it is allowed that innocent children will be born into slavery. Shouldn't it say that the child of a slave should be free of slavery? Why is it promulgating slavery of innocent children in the first place? That is "involuntary slavery" by any measure. You are blind indeed if you still persist in arguing otherwise. Shouldn't the Bible of all books speak out against such abhorrent practices?
Note that in all of these, the Bible never says that slavery is wrong, and indeed, that you *should* acquire slaves, preferably from the "heathen":
"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids" (Leviticus 25:44).
And let's see what the Bible has to say about slavery and warfare:
"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered [a city] into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee" (Deuteronomy 20:13-14).
Oh yeah, kill all the males. Great example of Christian mercy there. Then take all the women and children as slaves. I'm sure they all volunteered to be slaves.
Now, you probably say that you accept that slavery is wrong. Doesn't that say that our moral values are better than those of the Israelites and other paragons of virtue in the Bible?
Interesting sophistry. Do you imagine the daughter had any choice as to her occupation as a slave-wife? Notice that the Bible does not speak out against the practice of selling your daughter into slavery, or polygamy (which you evade by use of the phrase "gets someone else"). Read the quote carefully: it says that if the slave has borne *children* the children will belong to the slave owner. How do you explain that? An innocent child is born into slavery, and this is condoned by the Bible..how does that fit in with civilized values? If you still persist in naivete, here are some more quotes. On slaves attitude towards masters - they must fear and obey them, and treat them as they would Christ Himself: "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Peter 2:18). "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ" (Ephesians 6:5). Oh, and it also condones corporeal punishment (including mutilation and so on, common practice in the slave states) of slaves, as long as they don't die. "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money" (Exodus 21:20-21).
Where are these eternal and immutable "God's laws" codified by the way? In the Bible? I'm curious to see how you wriggle out of the dilemma posed by these choice quotes from the Bible, apropos slavery and polygamy.
"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever" (Exodus 21:2-6).
How about this, which condones selling your daughter into slavery, and polygamy as well?
"And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation, he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife: her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish"
I point these out, because they were used by southern Churches to justify slavery during the Civil war, and more recently, to justify apartheid.
Slavery was a moral value that "served" civilization for thousands of years. Indeed, southern churches cited the Bible when attempting to justify the institution of slavery, in the face of "more recent notions". I suppose that sort of fundamentalist thinking is now brushed off as the "exception to the rule", now that even the fundamentalists cannot afford to be racists. What hypocrisy.
However, one inference that I have drawn from various statistical analyses of Bush's support base (the "Red States"), is that there's a good deal of hypocrisy (unconscious, or otherwise) among those who vote reflexively Republican in those states, and advance cliched arguments along the lines of "Democrats are the types who want to live off welfare" or argue that their "moral values" are superior to those of "Massachusetts liberals".
For instance, take a look at this page. An excerpt: "The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000. Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States. Here are the Top 10 states that feed at the federal trough (with Red States highlighted in bold)".
I think most people realize unconsciously that the coastal economies subsidize the less densely populated "heartland" (I know this is somewhat simplistic but it's essentially true IMO), but the extent and distribution is surprising.
The other interesting (but not-so-surprising) bit of info was on divorce rates tabulated by state. An excerpt: "The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people." The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont." There are various possible reasons for this (including people marrying younger and so on), but certainly the "sanctity of marriage" is far more at risk in the Bible belt than in the east.
Here's an excerpt:
The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000. Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States. Here are the Top 10 states that feed at the federal trough (with Red States highlighted in bold):
To the original poster: if you read this, I know it's a depressing time and you may wish that the South had seceded after all. But don't give up hope - there are still people in America who understand the weight of history and what the phrases "land of the free", and "truth, justice and the american way" really mean. Stand fast, the future is not lost.
Let me remind you that most of the Blue states have a positive federal tax ratio (i.e. they pay much more in taxes than they get in return), unlike many of your precious red states - only Texas in that lot has a productive work culture. The rest leech off the economies of the blue states, which puts paid to your nonsense about "the work that has made this country great". Now please go and worship at the altar of Bush and await the day this great country which has survived so much is renamed "Jesusland".
"Wars are a disruptive societal force. That's why they are generally bad. Unfortunately, at times they are necessary" - this is true in the general case, but it certainly wasn't "necessary" by any means for Iraq. You seem to believe the propaganda that this war was for the benefit of the "Iraqi people" - it was not. I suggest you read this link, which along with Paul O'Neill's (former Bush cabinet member)testimony provides sufficient evidence that Bush Jr. planned to invade Iraq as early as 1999. 9/11 merely provided camouflage and a cassus belli to deceive the sadly trusting public.
And no, despite what you may have heard from Cheney, Iraq is not linked to 9/11.
Here's an excerpt:
Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
After reading about this bit of shameful opportunism at the expense of so many lives, I wonder how anyone can contemplate voting for Bush.
In other words, you sir, are a troll - while there are veterans who may oppose Kerry for his protests against the Vietnam war (and perhaps even rightfully so, since he seems to have branded everyone there with the "atrocity" brush), the swifties were merely a proxy for a wealthy republican who wanted to attack Kerry on his strengths, a classic Karl Rove tactic.
If we're going to judge the candidates by their actions 30 years ago, I'd rather support a war veteran than someone who evaded foreign service, and will not deny that he has used cocaine (his statement was that "he could pass a drug test at the time of his Pres. Bush Sr.'s administration"), or a team that between them have 3 DUIs (Cheney 2, Bush Jr. 1).