Thursday Next

I'm pretty pumped for first class. I often enjoy the "origin" parts of superhero films more than the shenanigans of established supers. This film will hinge on the development of the relationship between Charles and Eric.If they click on screen then the film will be great, if they're flat or there is no chemistry it will be another bland super hero film that takes itself too seriously.

We do have income taxes and National insurance. Everyone in the UK under the age of 65 has an £7,475 "Personal Allowance" (that is, if you earn up to that much it is free from income tax). Earnings between £7,475 and £35,000 are charged at 20% Earnings between £35,000 and £150,000 are charged at 40% Earnings over £150,000 are charged at 50%. There's also different rates for earnings from savings and dividends which I can go into further if you'd like... National Insurance directly funds things like your State Pension as well as... the additional State Pension, sometimes called the State Second Pension Jobseeker's Allowance - the 'contribution-based' element Employment and Support Allowance - the 'contribution-based' element Maternity Allowance bereavement benefits - Bereavement Allowance, Bereavement Payment and Widowed Parent's Allowance Incapacity Benefit Earnings between £139/wk and £817/wk, are charged at 12% Earnings above £817/wk, are charged at 2%. So, for the basic rate of tax payer you're looking at giving 1/4 to 1/3 of your wages to the tax man in order to fund all the free education and prescriptions to the jobless layabouts in Scotland. Lovely.

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Oh, didn't see that bit. Nah, story is full of crap to the best of my knowledge. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a prototype of something somewhere, but certainly nothing that you could call a "Nextbox". It's not showing on any of my sku plans whereas another rumoured but as yet unconfirmed console is.

Must be our shiny new devkits then. MS aren't doing "Dev kits" and "Test kits" any more, they're just doing a "Dev/Test kit" which is cheaper than the existing test kit (which itself was the cheaper of the two).

There are new cheaper dev/test kits. Not sure if that's what these are...

@Ethan: Never had a problem with the sticks. They could be improved by making them (and the triggers) concave, but otherwise they don't cause me any problems. The alternative controller is great. Thanks. Also, I can't stick shmups either. They just don't appeal no matter how many improbably large chested loli-mecha-spaceship-hostesses are in them.

I miss online gaming. I'd just picked up Killzone 3 as well and was looking forward to a change from BFBC2.

Typical filler episode. Decent enough, didn't set my world on fire. Next one should be more arc-y.

You do make sure to comment on the article once you've read the headline though right? I mean you have to read the headline and then comment a strong opinion for or against. It's just not Kotaku otherwise.

Oh man, I would LOVE Scotland to try and fund all their free university education and free prescriptions without London taxes bolstering their economy. There's only so much Irn-Bru you can export.

I got KZ3 the other day. Also my sister kindly got me the sharpshooter for my birthday. It's way more fun than playing with analogue sticks.

They're pretty much doing whatever they can to fix it. I know a couple of people have expressed a degree of reticence over returning to PSN, but I have no such qualms. People will bitch eternally though, Sony could offer to refund any fraudulent transactions for the rest of time and people would still bitch about it.

Wonder if we're gonna have some sort of "Go somewhere as Ezio, hit a dead end, go back as Altair to find the way through, go back to Ezio to progress" mechanic? I mean, I don't think you'll be able to change history, so not changing the landscape per se, more finding a hidden switch that has become obscured over the passage of time.

I also voted "Yes".

I completely agree with the second guy. Who has always been about cowering behind sofas. The fact that the effects have improved is irrelevant. Back when the villains looked like men in rubber suits television screens and signal were crap. It didn't matter that the men in suits had visible zips because you could barely make them out even with a "massive" 20" tv. Children get more advanced with every generation, in fact, people get used to new fakery all the time. I remember Jurassic Park looking as real as could be, I go back and watch it now and wonder how I ever fell for cartoon dinosaurs. We'll look back on Who in 10-20 years time and think, "how did anyone find something so preposterous even the slightest bit scary?" It's the reason that films like Alien (which barely show the monster except for fleeting glimpses) retain their scare factor while other monster films like Jaws become laughable when you see the ridiculous rubber shark. Who's scariest villains (imho) are still the weeping angels. The Silence have a certain creep factor that lurks in childrens' imaginations, but you see those angel statues all over the place and you can never really be absolutely sure it hasn't moved just a little bit while you looked the other way.

I'm not sure if I need to be stoked for Brink... I think I want to be, but I'm just, sort of not. When's it out?

Saw Thor last night. Really enjoyed. Film has a great sense of humour and there's some classic lines in it. I can't wait to get back from a drunken night out and announce "we drank, we fought, we made our ancestors proud."

In Black & White the game would whisper names and the "deeeeaaaath" (I think when a worshipper died). It only worked with common names, but any "Steves", "Johns" and "Daves" out there were rightly freaked out when they heard the game whispering "Steeeeeve... deeeeaaaath..." at them.

If you're saying you can't empathise with that, fair enough, but I think it is a fairly... understandable/comprehensible motivation. I mean, if you're gonna be a serial killer, you've gotta have a screw loose somewhere no?

Yeah, I think the point of that decision was less about getting different outcomes and more about trying to elicit an emotional response from the player. Like, it was meant to be this tough moral decision. Whether they succeeded or not is arguable, but I know I hesitated slightly before doing it.

"So, is there anywhere you've been in the last year that you don't want anyone to know about?" Ummm... no actually.

I'm loving all the fan rage out there at the moment. "How dare Valve charge me $80 for day 1 DLC!" It's cosmetic you prat. Here's how to get every piece of DLC you need on day one without spending a penny: "Don't buy any stupid wanky little hats you prick, they're pointless so don't buy them." "This game is like 2 hours long." No. It isn't. It took me around 8 hours first time out, I was moving at a fair clip, but taking in the sights now and then. Sure I could probably do a run in 4 hours once I've got it all down but... "Valve promised it would be 5x as long as Portal." The fastest I've seen Portal completed is ~15minutes. So as long as Portal 2 is ~1hr 15mins long. Mission fucking accomplished. Besides, who cares how quickly you can get to the credits? You can finish Super Mario Bros. In ~5mins and Super Mario Bros 3 in ~15mins. When you do you miss all the content. I can pretty much guarantee that every person who finished in sub 6 hours missed a hell of a lot of amusing conversations with Glados and Wheatley as well as all the humorous dialogue from Cave Johnson (the guy from the ads). I can scan through most books in a few hours, I'll know the sequence of events, but in doing so I miss all the story, characterisation and such.

Since we're distinguishing between the two... Finished Portal 2 Coop the other day. Loadsa fun. Also loadsa frustrated pinging at the spot you want a portal put. *PING PING PING PING* Yes, there *PING PING*. Where I'm *PING* effing *PING*ing is where. No you prat. The red portal was fine where it was! Now put a *PING*ing portal that goes from *PING*ing there to *PING*ing there you *PING*!!!!