Thursday Next

What about the privacy policy don't you like?

Even if it's ninety nine people telling one person what to do it's still a form of tyranny by that definition. It would be great if we could all do whatever the hell we wanted and that magically happened to mean that everything got done but until we all operate as some sort of hive mind we'll have to stick to being told what to do by some people and telling other people what to do.

What's so special about it? It will be the same as previous CoDs with minimal deviations. I just hope the map design will be better than in blops. "pilotable vehicles and branching, non-linear storyline." Seem to be more than minor deviations from the formula of follow man, shoot other mans + on rails vehicle stuff.

Since when is evolution bad science?

I'm sure you won't be alone in that. It's the first CoD that has piqued my interest since CoD:4 MW, but I'm not gonna day one it. Suckers gonna suck?

Looks... Interesting... Dare I say a bit shark jumpingy?

To your first question, the Government should do the job of setting and collecting taxes because that is what they were elected to do. The 1% were not and lack the safeguards that government has. I'm trying to say that if the 1% voluntarily pay more tax, then they will be able to hold the government to ransom over it by saying, if you don't do X we will no longer over-pay our taxes. EDIT: Ethan nailed it. People should pay in taxes what they are legally obliged to pay. No one should voluntarily pay more, nor should anyone pay less. The government should do it's job and tax those who can afford to pay more, more than the rest.

I find it odd that MS are sticking so rigidly to the 6mth delay games on demand model. Sony have gone day and date on digital. Nintendo are obviously planning the same for Wii U. I prefer digital to physical but I don't prefer it enough to wait 6 months and then pay more than I would for the physical copy. If Sony and MS go ahead with their "no used games" plans, specialist retailers will mostly die out, or will become truly specialist (as opposed to the current mainstream specialism they currently display). At that point I'd expect MS to go day and date on digital since they no longer have to worry about mollycoddling their retailer partnerships.

The way I read these comments is "I'm not an idiot, I'm going to pay the minimum I'm legally obliged too. But if you make it so I'm legally obliged to pay more, that's fine." The 1% should not do the Government's (or specifically the IRS') job for them. If the 1% decide to pay 10% more tax without legislation, there is nothing to stop them pulling that rug. This would give them even more power than they currently have which can't be a good thing.

Yeah, that doesn't have an appropriate name. I'd avoid ordering it in Ireland, or asking for the ingredients and when asked making up a different name.

Yeah, but if you advertise where you'll be putting them months in advance it kinda makes them vulnerable to sabotage. Like Ethan says, maybe this is just a dry run and the real locations will be more under the radar, or maybe there will be like 20 sites, half of which are dummies...

Cool. Thanks for the explanation.

Makes me think of Urinal Cake. Which is probably not at all tasty...

It's the scan deal of the day, the whole lot except the graphics and SSD came to ~£450 after tax and delivery. I don't know anything like enough to even think about overclocking. EDIT: What's up with that mobo then? What's the significance of the SSD? I just want to play some games and boot up quickly...

Went to scan.co.uk and bought: XClio Touch 320 Full Black Mid Tower Case with 2x120mm Blue LED Silent Blade Fans w/o PSU 650W PSU, Coolermaster GX RS650-ACAAE3-UK, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.31 Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad, 3.3GHz, HD3000 IGP 850Mhz, 6MB Cache 95W Retail Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 2.0 (x16), VGA On Board, ATX 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3 HyperX Genesis Grey, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-27, XMP, 1.5V 1TB Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 7200.14 SATA 6Gb/s 7200rpm 64mb Cache 8ms NCQ OEM I also acquired a Sapphire HD 6870. Which I'm told is not bad. Oh, and I bought a 60GB ssd.

I think it's cool. Though, wouldn't you want to be a little more secretive about exactly where you're going to put them?

Gonna give the Three Worlds a crack having been through the Watches series. I do need to re-read Game of Thrones though. Might save that for the summer.

I think in the UK it's somewhat archaic to say randy, similarly frisky is something you'd only expect someone posh to say with a straight face.

I disagree. Brawl has been out ages and is not the deepest game ever. I think that most people will be pretty much done with it and could well see this as a natural replacement. Also, the chance for a fresh roster and a high def experience could well be enough to persuade those that do still play SSB to give it a go. Looking at the currently announced roster this game skews a little older as well so will be more likely to appeal to the 18-30 FHM reading gamers who were not so keen on Kirby, Mario and Starfox. These titles are pretty much fan service games and while there may be a lot of overlap between Ninty and Sony fans, I don't think that the existence of one game feeding that inner fan will stop the majority of them wanting the Sony fandom sated. Saying "if they like Brawl they would not buy this" does not work in the current market. People liked CoD4 MW, then they liked MW2, W@W, BlOps and now they like MW3. This game has shinier graphics and different characters, something that far exceeds what MW offers with its bi-annual updates so if it is like SSB, it will probably be quite well received by SSB fans.

Pretty sure it's not about "beating Nintendo" or "pulling away SSB fans". It's just about shifting units. Personally, I don't like fighting games, but I do like games with local multiplayer, so this might pop up on my radar if it's a ~20GBP price point. It looks really well executed and I think there's quite a few stars in there already. Would be interested to see if any FF characters pop up, and if Snake makes an appearance having already been in SSB.

Am I mental or has Dean mixed up balls and walls???

As Dean says, monopolies in themselves are not illegal, otherwise you could never start up a truly new business. What is illegal is anti-competitive practices such as, restricting where and for how much a product may be sold. Market dominance is a determining factor as to whether your anti-competitive behaviour is illegal or not. For example, a company trialling a new product or business model may want to restrict sales to a single country (say Germany) to see what consumer demand is like. Switzerland is a German / French speaking nation and so will often take German product. Because the introduction of another country would skew the results of your trial you may legitimately say to wholesalers "You may only sell this product to German retailers.". On the other hand, if you know that the Swiss will pay more for a product than the Germans (they will) you will want to sell to Swiss wholesalers at a higher price. However you may not restrict German suppliers from selling the product they got from you at German wholesale prices to the Swiss, either undercutting the Swiss wholesalers or making more profit. If you do this and are in a position of Market dominance, you will likely cop a big fat fine. Technically all price fixing is illegal, however, most authorities turn a blind eye to the practice of setting a maximum price since it is beneficial to consumers.

Needs more tessels.

As I understand it the US would rather use up everyone else's oil first. Then refuse to let anyone have their own later. If the ease of mining post set up is beneficial enough and resources plentiful enough, it might be worth the (admittedly huge) initial effort.

Point being there is a lot within US borders that it doesn't use.