I think some people need to read the OP again. He didn't describe being forced to watch the film as torture; he said that "if this is the sort of thing [marines] do behind closed doors - in fact they do worse (torture....)".
Not to say that being forced to watch a film over and over again couldn't be torture - a TV with the volume turned up to maximum, outside the cell but pointing in, playing the same film on repeat 24 hours a day for example. Not that I'm saying that necessarily happened here, although I think we can assume from the word "forced" that he didn't have the TV and remote in the cell with him.
Yeah, the guy was an asshole of epic proportions. But that doesn't make this right.
"We're very proud of our signed photo of Saddam and what it means", say Stone and Parker. Really? What, exactly, *does* it mean? Because AFAICS it just shows that some old man (albeit an epic asshole of an old man) was forced to do things against his will for the amusement of some bored soldiers who knew there was little chance of any comeback. And maybe it's just me, but I don't think that's something to be really proud of.
If you're on a CFA it'd be very unusual not to take out after the event insurance against exactly that possibility. It's another way the claimant is forced to assess the merits of the case well before proceedings are even issued.
The losing plaintiff doesn't, other than disbursements. But the lawyer will have thrown thousands of pounds (in lost hours) at a case that earned them nothing.
So if you're a lawyer you want to be very sure that you're going to win before accepting a case.
Almost all tripping (bad paving etc) claims these days have to be funded under a conditional fee arrangement (AKA no win no fee). The combination of that fact and that the major insurers fight every case means that almost none of them come to court.
CFAs filter out all but the sure-fire wins well before court proceedings.
Chiropractic is just as bonkers as homeopathy and other CAMs. Yet somehow they've acquired this veneer of it being more scientific.
It isn't. What they generally keep quiet about is that at the core of their practice is the belief that all problems can be cured by re-aligning bones. Not just problems clearly relating to those bones, but all problems - asthma, for example. They keep quiet about this because it shows that actually their system is based on nonsense.
The British Chiropractic Association recently launched a ill-thought through case against Simon Singh for daring to point this out.
The "spitting ban" that article mentions is nonsense; it may exist, but it's made no impact whatsoever on the amount of it that goes on. You still can't move for people hawking and flobbing everywhere.
It's the one thing as a Westerner I could never come to terms with there. Especially when the person doing the flobbing is upwind of your bicycle on a bike of their own:(
Wouldn't it be more fair to say that ShopRite are rolling this out? TFA makes it sound like MS have snuck in in the middle of the night and installed this system without their knowledge.
Yup, I'll go with that. My PC runs Vista - I wouldn't have chosen it, just because generally I don't like early adopting stuff like operating systems. But actually, I've had no problems whatsoever. Solid as a rock, runs everything I've thrown at it, looks good, is intuitive to use - what more do you want out of an OS? So far (4 months use, at a guess) I've been impressed.
Also agree entirely with the Mac/PC thing being tedious beyond belief. I just can't imagine how vacuous someone's existence would have to be that they can get so worked up about what OS *other people* use on their PC. Who cares, really?
I think this thread proves the ultimate futility of trying to compile an authorative top 100 - nobody will ever be happy. The purpose of these things is to generate a bit of chat (which clearly it's doing), and to maybe introduce people to games they've not played before. Any criteria is going to be flawed; there's no way of empirically measuring the quality of a game. Look how divisive something like Killer 7 can be - some people think it's definite top 10, others wouldn't see it even near the list.
That said, it's a good list, I think. It's a mix of the obvious and the less obvious. The articles on the games (in the mag itself) are really well written, and they seem to have set out to avoid the predictable cliches that you're probably sick of reading about any of the Best Games In The World...Ever(TM). And actually, it's quite nice to read a modern take on the games I've played over the years.
I don't think it's meant as a dictatorial "if you think this isn't the best 100 games ever, you're wrong" read, more a collectors item and a conversation starter.
I don't see this as a particularly big deal - he's a 60 year old man, why should he have used the internet? At least he actually admitted he didn't know what it was, and risked looking an idiot, rather than ploughing on regardless to save face. That strikes me as being a far better thing to do.
Tangential, perhaps, as he admitted that he himself didn't know what one was. But there's also the fact that cases are reported, and can end up being referred back to potentially hundreds of years later - by then, all the cultural touchstones and "common knowledge" will be totally different, so it can be important to have an explanation of these things in the judgement.
I really don't think it matters. There's diminishing returns on upping the power of your chipset, especially when you're also upping your output to HD etc etc. Plus you have to charge people through the nose or make a loss on the console.
These days, all games can look good; some can look amazing, but they can all look good. It's a cliche, but it really is becoming more about the gameplay and accesibilty. Who would have said 2 years ago that sales of the ugly, not very powerful DS (with its odd touchscreen hook) would be blowing the sleek, sexy, powerful PS2-in-your-pocket PSP out of the water? And yet here we are.
I know the handheld market doesn't map directly to the under-the-TV, but I don't struggle to imagine the sucess of the DS being mirrored by the Wii.
No, I don't buy that. I've worked in an IT (developer/analyst) role in a number of companies, and they've pretty much all treated their IT staff badly in comparison with other groups. Systemic problems common to all have been:
- a complete lack of knowledge or interest in how they do their job; or, more pertinently how long it takes to do things - repeated promises by people in charge to get jobs done far quicker than they can actually be done, leading to horrendous crunch periods - an assumption that anyone in IT is happy to work nights - understaffing - no career path leading to promotions other than into management - ie it's impossible to rise through the ranks as a coder, even a spectacularly good one
etc etc.
These have been the case in every place I've worked, as well as everywhere my friends and workmates have.
Is there going to be a mass exodus? Probably not. The money is ok, and most people aged 30 and over don't have the financial option to retrain into something else and take the paycut. Luckily for me, I do, so I'm going back to what I used to do pre-IT - law. Having worked in both jobs, I can honestly say there's no comparison when it comes to the complexity of what you do, the respect your job title accords you, stress levels, and the money you get at the end of the month.
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I think some people need to read the OP again. He didn't describe being forced to watch the film as torture; he said that "if this is the sort of thing [marines] do behind closed doors - in fact they do worse (torture....)".
Not to say that being forced to watch a film over and over again couldn't be torture - a TV with the volume turned up to maximum, outside the cell but pointing in, playing the same film on repeat 24 hours a day for example. Not that I'm saying that necessarily happened here, although I think we can assume from the word "forced" that he didn't have the TV and remote in the cell with him.
Yeah, the guy was an asshole of epic proportions. But that doesn't make this right.
"We're very proud of our signed photo of Saddam and what it means", say Stone and Parker. Really? What, exactly, *does* it mean? Because AFAICS it just shows that some old man (albeit an epic asshole of an old man) was forced to do things against his will for the amusement of some bored soldiers who knew there was little chance of any comeback. And maybe it's just me, but I don't think that's something to be really proud of.
If you're on a CFA it'd be very unusual not to take out after the event insurance against exactly that possibility. It's another way the claimant is forced to assess the merits of the case well before proceedings are even issued.
But even with torture that couldn't be got out of them?
Well, clearly torture works. Case closed.
Score one for the UK :)
The losing plaintiff doesn't, other than disbursements. But the lawyer will have thrown thousands of pounds (in lost hours) at a case that earned them nothing.
So if you're a lawyer you want to be very sure that you're going to win before accepting a case.
Almost all tripping (bad paving etc) claims these days have to be funded under a conditional fee arrangement (AKA no win no fee). The combination of that fact and that the major insurers fight every case means that almost none of them come to court.
CFAs filter out all but the sure-fire wins well before court proceedings.
Via a European Enforcement Order.
Chiropractic is just as bonkers as homeopathy and other CAMs. Yet somehow they've acquired this veneer of it being more scientific.
It isn't. What they generally keep quiet about is that at the core of their practice is the belief that all problems can be cured by re-aligning bones. Not just problems clearly relating to those bones, but all problems - asthma, for example. They keep quiet about this because it shows that actually their system is based on nonsense.
The British Chiropractic Association recently launched a ill-thought through case against Simon Singh for daring to point this out.
Yup, and here; still getting 250 a day+ or so.
Maybe they finally clicked that you've already got a huge penis and legendary bedroom performance?
The "spitting ban" that article mentions is nonsense; it may exist, but it's made no impact whatsoever on the amount of it that goes on. You still can't move for people hawking and flobbing everywhere.
:(
It's the one thing as a Westerner I could never come to terms with there. Especially when the person doing the flobbing is upwind of your bicycle on a bike of their own
Wouldn't it be more fair to say that ShopRite are rolling this out? TFA makes it sound like MS have snuck in in the middle of the night and installed this system without their knowledge.
Generating valid credit card numbers is a doddle; I wrote an excel script to it, and my excel skillz are pretty lame.
I was working for a credit card company at the time, and needed the numbers for testing purposes, I should probably add.
Yup, I'll go with that. My PC runs Vista - I wouldn't have chosen it, just because generally I don't like early adopting stuff like operating systems. But actually, I've had no problems whatsoever. Solid as a rock, runs everything I've thrown at it, looks good, is intuitive to use - what more do you want out of an OS? So far (4 months use, at a guess) I've been impressed.
Also agree entirely with the Mac/PC thing being tedious beyond belief. I just can't imagine how vacuous someone's existence would have to be that they can get so worked up about what OS *other people* use on their PC. Who cares, really?
I think this thread proves the ultimate futility of trying to compile an authorative top 100 - nobody will ever be happy. The purpose of these things is to generate a bit of chat (which clearly it's doing), and to maybe introduce people to games they've not played before. Any criteria is going to be flawed; there's no way of empirically measuring the quality of a game. Look how divisive something like Killer 7 can be - some people think it's definite top 10, others wouldn't see it even near the list.
That said, it's a good list, I think. It's a mix of the obvious and the less obvious. The articles on the games (in the mag itself) are really well written, and they seem to have set out to avoid the predictable cliches that you're probably sick of reading about any of the Best Games In The World...Ever(TM). And actually, it's quite nice to read a modern take on the games I've played over the years.
I don't think it's meant as a dictatorial "if you think this isn't the best 100 games ever, you're wrong" read, more a collectors item and a conversation starter.
I don't see this as a particularly big deal - he's a 60 year old man, why should he have used the internet? At least he actually admitted he didn't know what it was, and risked looking an idiot, rather than ploughing on regardless to save face. That strikes me as being a far better thing to do.
Tangential, perhaps, as he admitted that he himself didn't know what one was. But there's also the fact that cases are reported, and can end up being referred back to potentially hundreds of years later - by then, all the cultural touchstones and "common knowledge" will be totally different, so it can be important to have an explanation of these things in the judgement.
I really don't think it matters. There's diminishing returns on upping the power of your chipset, especially when you're also upping your output to HD etc etc. Plus you have to charge people through the nose or make a loss on the console. These days, all games can look good; some can look amazing, but they can all look good. It's a cliche, but it really is becoming more about the gameplay and accesibilty. Who would have said 2 years ago that sales of the ugly, not very powerful DS (with its odd touchscreen hook) would be blowing the sleek, sexy, powerful PS2-in-your-pocket PSP out of the water? And yet here we are. I know the handheld market doesn't map directly to the under-the-TV, but I don't struggle to imagine the sucess of the DS being mirrored by the Wii.
No, I don't buy that. I've worked in an IT (developer/analyst) role in a number of companies, and they've pretty much all treated their IT staff badly in comparison with other groups. Systemic problems common to all have been:
- a complete lack of knowledge or interest in how they do their job; or, more pertinently how long it takes to do things
- repeated promises by people in charge to get jobs done far quicker than they can actually be done, leading to horrendous crunch periods
- an assumption that anyone in IT is happy to work nights
- understaffing
- no career path leading to promotions other than into management - ie it's impossible to rise through the ranks as a coder, even a spectacularly good one
etc etc.
These have been the case in every place I've worked, as well as everywhere my friends and workmates have.
Is there going to be a mass exodus? Probably not. The money is ok, and most people aged 30 and over don't have the financial option to retrain into something else and take the paycut. Luckily for me, I do, so I'm going back to what I used to do pre-IT - law. Having worked in both jobs, I can honestly say there's no comparison when it comes to the complexity of what you do, the respect your job title accords you, stress levels, and the money you get at the end of the month.