Steampunk
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Posts posted by Steampunk
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Welcome to the site. There's plenty of things to discuss and tons of resources to help you through any other FE games you choose to take up.
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I think everyone is forgetting another important question: How do we deal with their ideology? Sure, taking down the group ought to stop them, but their radical ideology will live on if it is not addressed also. What will stop another group with similar ideology from rising and taking its place?
You sir win a free internet. This is the crux of the issue with regards to terror. Our policies against terrorist organizations fail because we try to engage them in conventional wars where American technological superiority, combat training, and aerial warfare can be leveraged to our advantage. Being radical, decentralized, asymmetrical actors, the best that the US military (and those of other Western powers) has to offer, conventional "drop troops, caputure cities" approach that seems to dominate strategic thought throughout the West, is completely ineffective against these groups. Countries that try get sucked into a no-win situation. Terrorist plans are such that, even if attacks fail, the terrorists still win. With the United States (or other countries), every time we don't win we lose. After we lose enough, people begin to wonder why we're bothering with such nonsense, and some pressure is taken off of terrorists as the public morale no longer supports overt military action against terrorists. Counterterrorist operations are rather hit or miss simply because no government agency has a crystal ball, I don't care how much leaders boast about their intelligence capabilities.
What Americans (and other countries) need to do is abandon any notion that this problem can be blown away with air strikes and focus on the common motivations behind terrorist group support. We don't even have to defeat the terrorists themselves; merely invalidate the cause they sell to certain consitutents. and demographics. In both my under grad and grad research in this issue, I've found that these groups draw support from local poplations with certain political needs that the established regime does not satisfy. Things like good roads to travel across, easy access to water, stability so that the population's economy can grow: basic facets of what we call "National Security," in other words. Places like Afghanistan serves as a haven for many terrorist organizations because the population supports them. The population supports them because they believe these organizations are the answer to their problems. Think of this in terms of the Tea Party. When the Tea Party started, they promised to make certain things better and improve the quality of life, and some people actually believed it. It's no different with terrorists, insurgents, or Fourth Generation Wars: only in these cases, people are led to believe that killing members of a certain commuity or nationality will make their lives better.
To defeat such an enemy, you must remove his support. To do this, you must address the domestic crises that compel people to put their faith in such violent organizations. Someone, whether it is the United States, the UN, Bengion or Ylisse, must help develop the infrastructure and public works projects to show supporters of these organizations that they don't need to kill people to make their lives better. They just need help setting up a framework that will satisfy their political needs. I think it would also be beneficial if people abandoned the idea that the United States should never experience another terrorist attack. I understand 9/11 was a traumatic experience that still hurts for many throughout this nation, but no intelligence agency or national defense program is capable of the flawless powers of prediction that is necessary to intercept every attack that could ever happen. Pressuring the government to do so may dramatically reduce its capacity to identify credible threats and act upon those threats quickly, as policymakers, in response to the public's need for a guarantee of perfect safety, pushes an overencumbered intelligence community to identfy and prevent every possible bump in the road of life.
My opinion, for what its worth.
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Been a member since 2013, lurked before then, and have gone back to lurking. So far, I've loved the site. People made me feel welcome from day one, and I've never gotten a circle jerk vibe from this site like many other gaming communities.
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Steam has recently offered paid mods for Skyrim in the Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent/%C2%A0.
As one may expect, this has caused a serious shit storm. Personally, I don't see a problem with modders getting paid, though the payment is a bit slanted: 25% for modders, 75% for Valve and Bethesda, and payment is withheld until the modder makes $100. If this is a long-term change, I sincerely hope this changes to benefit the modder (who actually did the work) more than the two companies (who had minimal involvement in making the mod itself)
At any rate, my biggest concern with this is that Steam may implement DRM protections on Workshop mods and participating developers will start engineering their games to only run Steam mods. This will make community modding much harder and more sketchy as people will have to find non-Steam versions of the games (assuming one is released) or crack their Steam games to use non-Steam mods. I also worry about how the money will trickle down to each modder involved in collaborative projects. will SKSE devs get anything for paid mods that require script extender functionality? How will Steam ensure that all participants in a group project will get compensated as opposed to the single uploader? Will modders continue to work together or will they hoard their ideas to maximize their own gain? There are a lot of tough questions that I don't believe Steam asked when implementing this idea that the modding community will be left to figure out for itself.
What are your thoughts? Will this destroy modding? Wil this make it better? Will this even last long enough to have any long term effects in PC modding or will the overwhelming negative backlash kill this before it really takes off?
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Humans are only as good or bad as the choices they make. You really cannot call all of humanity one or the other. Experience tells me most people are generally good, but there are a lot of bad ones too.
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I loved Disney's Robin Hood as a child. That movies intro song also gave us Hampsterdance
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Nobody's giving thanks? Oh yeah, I forgot Thanksgiving is a Christmas dinner rehearsal.
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If only SF could be...
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Why do today what you can leave for tomorrow?
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It's a shame people feel a need to have things like this. It's just begging to be abused by angry, spiteful exes.
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I would probably spend most of my time in the metal shop class. There's nothing better than getting a grade for playing with flammable gases and powerful electric current.
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Not sure if this belongs here or the other thread, but here's a picture of two horses I had when I was in high school.
The black one is Buttons (I think 1-2 y/o at the time) and the sorrel is Dollar (20 y/o iirc). I had to replace the bedding in the barn stalls, so they had to stay out for an afternoon. It was pretty cold that day.
Here's a closeup of Buttons w/ Dollar in the background.
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Zero so far. Hasn't been a need for people to know it yet.
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I suppose I befriended a few people because I get along with them. That's working out better than net stalking people so far, but I'm not ready to call it a better system just yet.
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Real women drink pumpkin spice creamer. Just sayin'
Fair enough. What do fake men and women drink?
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Real men use hazelnut creamer. Srsly.
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I kinda think both parties could (slash could have, slash should have) stand to get some education on the problem, really. I think that one of the reasons why bullying/harassment that looks like this happens is that some (not all by a long shot, (as in this wouldn't cover bullies who seek out quiet kids and abuse them or anything,) but some) of the kids/people acting as bullies don't realize that the person they're ganging up on isn't being intentionally offensive (speaking not necessarily with 100% regard to this specific case, here), but rather are somehow wired differently, and how so. (that how so part might be even more important)
Even when, in my experience, I was told that some kid was, say, autistic, I wasn't given something like a really robust explanation, like along the lines that "their brain is, while neither objectively inferior or superior, biologically different in A, B, and C ways, and thus they tend to process/respond to/act on information in X, Y, and Z ways that may be markedly different from the range of interpretations that you're used to." I'd have been lucky to get a lesson like that offered in an AP Psych class in high school (which means I would've all but had to actively seek it out myself). I was usually just told something like "they're autistic/have Asperger's/social anxiety disorder/are different (ugh), give them some leeway."
If I were an ignorant (read: untaught) kid, and all I was told was that, and if I then saw them act in a way that didn't seem to be meeting me halfway like I'd expect from anybody else (read: if they seemed "annoying"), even if it probably didn't look like that to them and that wasn't their intent, there's a depressingly high chance I'd just end up going, "this kid's just an asshole! And they're either trying to tell me that they're not (and lying), or that they're not going to do anything about it. Screw this shitlord"
Yeah, unfortunately the latter is the way it normally goes. Better or worse, there's a certain way every person is supposed to act. Even more unfortunate, I have always been told by teachers, rehabilitation workers, etc that I should never tell people about my Asperger's: to always pass myself off as normal. It's annoying that people with physical disabilities get an outpouring of support whilst people aren't "allowed" to have mental disabilities, but c'est la vie. I suppose that makes sense though: it's simpler for the minority of AS people to accommodate "normal" people than to educate each person about AS so they know what to expect.
And frankly, teaching people not to bully sounds more worthwhile to me in general than leaving it at teaching people how to deal with bullies. I have a hard time imagining it becoming totally idiot-proof or asshole-proof, to be sure, not the least of many possible reasons why being influence from outside the teaching environment (like parents), but I think there's a difference between a measure of reasoned pessimism/projecting a margin of error, of sorts, and going "aw, why even try, they're/we're all gonna be fucked up anway."
(not that there's no value in teaching people how to deal with a bully, but an ounce of prevention something something cure etc)
It's an ideal solution, but it relies solely on every parent making an effort. Sadly, there are too many people who either don't care or refuse to accept that their child is a public hazard for this to be realistic. So long as there are people who don't actually parent their kids, bullying isn't going away.
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As a person with Asperger's, let me first point out that calling him "autistic" is misleading. While Asperger's is on the Austistic spectrum, it is on the high-functioning end, which has much milder symptoms than what most people consider "autism." I am not trying to trivialize his disorder, but I don't think it's accurate to say he has no control over himself. While I was very much oblivious to many aspects of social interaction (sarcasm, implied meaning, etc) as a child, I could tell when someone was getting agitated. Maybe not as fast as someone without Asperger's, but I could see when someone had enough. Children with Asperger's may have certain social challenges, but we are not stupid and I don't think we can dismiss misconduct on his part as "he doesn't know any better."
I do believe it is inappropriate to mock someone's disability, and the children should have handled it differently. I don't believe it's fair to tell them to suck it up and deal with someone provoking them just because he has a disability. That can very easily teach the child his disability is nice crutch, which opens the door for him to continue inappropriate behavior without any fear of reprimand or correction. I don't know how actively involved the school or parents are in teaching him how to act in public, but I think that's ultimately the best solution. I spent a lot of time in high school (and in my personal life) learning how to interact with others and how to read body language. These things can be taught: I know that first hand. If he legitimately cannot tell when people are annoyed, I think the child needs to learn these things himself. Going through life as an irritant to people around you is not good for anyone; least of all him.
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I respect my mother a great deal. She wasn't expected to survive more than a few days after she was born: her parents actually picked her name based on what they wanted on her tombstone. She grew up with a verbally (and occasionally physically) abusive mother and lived through IRA attacks in Northern Ireland, and even managed to escape from the IRA when they tried to kidnap her. She came to the US without knowing anybody here, made a decent living, and also turned in to a better mother than the one she grew up with. She also managed to survive breast cancer and became a citizen in 2012. It's hard for me to look at her life and not hold some respect for all she's lived with and overcome.
My dad hasn't had it so hard, but I still respect what he's managed to do in life. He's got a steady income, a lot of practical "handyman" skills, and learned to play music.
The problem with that reasoning is that anyone can be excused, for example, Hitler.
Godwin's Law invoked.
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Approx. 130 hours. Most of it spent hatching and leveling babies.
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Hello and welcome to Serenes Forest. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to bother someone else.
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I want to assume it's Malva. If you play the postgame, you'll understand why.
Also, are we completely ignoring the fact that there's also a robot maid that tries to attack you when you talk to her?
I thought all maids acted like that.
Now that I think about it, it's probably Shauna: http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/7/73/XY_Shauna.png
Look at those eyes. Those are the eyes of a sociopath who acts like they're okay with losing to you all the time but deep down really wants to rip out your heart and eat it.
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I keep running in to this butler at the Battle Chateau who says stuff like "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do" and "I will never reveal my master's identity." Clearly, this is a hitman contracted to murder you. Question is, who sent him and why?
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Quest 64 has a cult following, so you may like it. I thought it was boring as hell though. Lost Kingdom for the GCN is a sort-of RPG card battle game. Really short, but fun. Jade Empire for Xbox/PC was really good. If I remember others, I'll bring them up.
Steam Workshop Offering Paid Mods
in General Gaming
Posted
I'm sure they'll try to bring it back in the future. I hope this pissed off enough people that they start supporting alternatives like GOG. I don't think any company should own a market, and Steam really is the only sheriff in town when it comes to PC gaming. Hopefully some healthy competition springs up from this.