Why don't you vote for an independent?
I suppose this thread's for the people of voting age. And the people in countries that hold 'democratic' elections.
When you vote, do you always vote for a representative of a major party?
If so, is that because you trust the party, or because you trust their representative, or is it just because there's nobody better to vote for?
If you had independent candidates to vote for, would you consider voting for them?
Have you had independent candidates in your area before, but you didn't know anything about them / you hadn't even heard of them until you saw their names on the ballot paper?
Do you feel misrepresented by 'party politics' or do you genuinely feel that one of the major parties adequately represents you and your beliefs?
I'm curious.
When you vote, do you always vote for a representative of a major party?
If so, is that because you trust the party, or because you trust their representative, or is it just because there's nobody better to vote for?
If you had independent candidates to vote for, would you consider voting for them?
Have you had independent candidates in your area before, but you didn't know anything about them / you hadn't even heard of them until you saw their names on the ballot paper?
Do you feel misrepresented by 'party politics' or do you genuinely feel that one of the major parties adequately represents you and your beliefs?
I'm curious.
Bit of Jazzy Jeff with Raheem DeVaughn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w78HHkHXwug
No blur will ever matter. Whatever you're focusing on should not be blurred, so if something in the distance is blurred it doesn't matter.
Actually if something in the distance is blurred and you happen to be focusing on it, then it will totally ruin the graphics. So any blur, anywhere, is a stupid idea and should not happen. Your eyes will provide all the blur necessary.
The only reason you'd need blur is to make screenshots look sporty so idiots say 'Wow look at that blur, I'm preordering this game with the fancy blur effect that I'll never actually see when I'm playing it, and if I do see it, it will completely ruin my experience'.
Honestly, gamers are such suckers. Let's see if they improve the gameplay at all. Removing 90% of the cutscenes would be a good place to start, because 90% of the cutscenes are too long and are extremely poor-quality cinema.
Actually if something in the distance is blurred and you happen to be focusing on it, then it will totally ruin the graphics. So any blur, anywhere, is a stupid idea and should not happen. Your eyes will provide all the blur necessary.
The only reason you'd need blur is to make screenshots look sporty so idiots say 'Wow look at that blur, I'm preordering this game with the fancy blur effect that I'll never actually see when I'm playing it, and if I do see it, it will completely ruin my experience'.
Honestly, gamers are such suckers. Let's see if they improve the gameplay at all. Removing 90% of the cutscenes would be a good place to start, because 90% of the cutscenes are too long and are extremely poor-quality cinema.
Does anyone really care?
Has a blur effect ever improved a game?
It's GTA 5. It'll be 40 hours of tough-guy cutscenes mixed in with 20 hours of driving towards a blob and 10 hours of shooting people after you get there. What it looks like isn't important.
Has a blur effect ever improved a game?
It's GTA 5. It'll be 40 hours of tough-guy cutscenes mixed in with 20 hours of driving towards a blob and 10 hours of shooting people after you get there. What it looks like isn't important.
The last time I was in a helicopter was before the iPhone came out, and I didn't drop my phone out of it anyway.
Actually I've never broken a phone, so I suppose I'm safe enough having a good smartphone.
But for the record I've never had an iPhone. I like having a good smartphone.
Actually I've never broken a phone, so I suppose I'm safe enough having a good smartphone.
But for the record I've never had an iPhone. I like having a good smartphone.
Bear in mind that everyone's seen that you've still buying old Akai samplers.
Nah he had a good season surrounded by a squad that didn't want to be there. I thought he acquitted himself well but he was the only player who came out of it with any credit.
Rooney is an overpaid slob with an unjustifiably inflated ego. It's all downhill from here and Moyes should shift him while he's got the opportunity.
He would have done a lot better if they'd ever played him up the middle though. I really rate Arshavin he's a talented forward but it seems he's a bit like Berbatov, his form goes completely out of the window when he's not happy.
After contracting as a developer for about 15 years I took a full-time job at the start of April.
So now I'm a software developer at a company here in York specialising in master data management, doing mostly development of a new software client but also a fair amount of networking configuration because I'm better at that than their existing staff.
It's close enough to cycle to work (4 miles) and York is almost totally flat and has lots of dedicated cycle routes so rather than sit in traffic I can do a really relaxing 15 minute cycle ride to and from work each day, mostly on low-traffic roads or off-road along former railway routes.
Also it's the first time I've ever had a "proper" job, with stuff like paid holidays. For the last 15 years I've taken around 1-2 weeks holiday every two years, so it's going to be really weird taking 5 weeks off each year and getting paid for it...
So now I'm a software developer at a company here in York specialising in master data management, doing mostly development of a new software client but also a fair amount of networking configuration because I'm better at that than their existing staff.
It's close enough to cycle to work (4 miles) and York is almost totally flat and has lots of dedicated cycle routes so rather than sit in traffic I can do a really relaxing 15 minute cycle ride to and from work each day, mostly on low-traffic roads or off-road along former railway routes.
Also it's the first time I've ever had a "proper" job, with stuff like paid holidays. For the last 15 years I've taken around 1-2 weeks holiday every two years, so it's going to be really weird taking 5 weeks off each year and getting paid for it...
Yeah he looked really promising when he first signed for Arsenal but it never really worked out, and once he lost his confidence he was hopeless.
Not really a good fit for the team. I think they hoped he would become a bit of a Rosicky but he turned out to be nothing like him.
Great player, shame he got stuck in that situation at Arsenal really.
Not really a good fit for the team. I think they hoped he would become a bit of a Rosicky but he turned out to be nothing like him.
Great player, shame he got stuck in that situation at Arsenal really.
The worrying thing for me is the selective historical context that he uses to justify his position. Like the way he's chosen to select wars the US has been involved in right up to the end of world war 2. I guess because that's when the USA stopped being 'the goodies' in most of the wars they fought.
And ignoring US involvement in the history of the middle east except the last 20-odd years. The cut-off point is apparently somewhere between the USA invading Iraq in 1991, which did happen and was apparently heroic, and the USA funding Iraq's chemical weapons attacks on Iran, which doesn't get mentioned so much.
The USA's unconditional support and almost complete funding of Israel's lengthy murderous campaign against Palestine does sometimes get mentioned by Americans because their media has always portrayed it as heroic and so most of them think they are 'the goodies' in that scenario. Which I suppose shows how different American perspectives are sometimes to the those of the rest of the world.
And ignoring US involvement in the history of the middle east except the last 20-odd years. The cut-off point is apparently somewhere between the USA invading Iraq in 1991, which did happen and was apparently heroic, and the USA funding Iraq's chemical weapons attacks on Iran, which doesn't get mentioned so much.
The USA's unconditional support and almost complete funding of Israel's lengthy murderous campaign against Palestine does sometimes get mentioned by Americans because their media has always portrayed it as heroic and so most of them think they are 'the goodies' in that scenario. Which I suppose shows how different American perspectives are sometimes to the those of the rest of the world.
I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with Obama so far. I lived in the USA when Clinton was in office and despite previously running a redneck state and putting people to death for whatever crimes they put people to death for, he was a pretty liberal president. Much more so than Obama.
I suppose Obama has improved healthcare for the poorest people in society. That's a real achievement in a country that is almost universally opposed to the concept of taxation.
I suppose Obama has improved healthcare for the poorest people in society. That's a real achievement in a country that is almost universally opposed to the concept of taxation.
I guess someone called you a racist. I'm happy to concede you're not a racist. What worries me is your contentedness to write off such a vast proportion of humanity as violent or even psychopathic but ignore the glaring flaws of your own society at the same time.
If you just wanted the world to be a better place then you probably wouldn't have so many people arguing with you, but that's not what you want. What you want is to demonstrate how your culture is better than everybody else's culture. You don't give a shit about most of the people on the planet, only those who grew up in the sort of culture that you grew up in.
Can't you see that that's something of a character flaw?
The USA is practically a theocracy. It's also the most violent and warmongering nation on earth and has been since the second world war.
I'm more worried about the USA than radical Islam. We've had a few people killed by Islamic extremists in recent years but there's been hundreds of thousands of innocents slaughtered by the USA while they've been chasing profits. Is capitalism still winning this cultural argument you're having with yourself?
I appreciate that you live in the USA so you don't necessarily have to worry about being bombed by your own country - unless you're unlucky enough be to visiting family in Pakistan when they decide to bomb a school or a funeral or some equally dangerous gathering of non-whites - so maybe you should be more worried about rednecks with firearms who seem to go out and kill their fellow Americans a lot more often than Islamic extremists do.
Bringing in representatives of other religions weakens the power of the dominant religion. No religion would be the ideal but apparently that's too Stalinist or something so we're not allowed to completely outlaw belief in fairies.
Although that would improve the life of everybody in the UK I'm pretty sure, and there wouldn't be so much wasted energy on stupid shit like trying to stop gays having the right to get married, so maybe all that time saved could be spent on figuring out why some Muslims feel aggrieved at the west. I mean, if I can figure it out I'm sure it wouldn't take the politicians much longer, they're not THAT much more stupid than I am.
The press bias here in the UK is such that there's almost no point paying any attention to the news any more, it's all been spun so heavily.
Apparently the only rapists we've got are Asian, the only killers are Muslim, and the only people fraudulently receiving state benefits are eastern Europeans. We've also got to stop paying state pensions to old people and providing assistance for the disabled because our members of parliament have decided they need a 30% pay rise this year.
It's important that we see the current ongoing recession as being the fault of the poor because the bankers are certainly not about to take any responsibility for destroying the economy, and they aren't even going to entertain the idea that they should pay for it.
This morning I spent £200 on tyres, then this afternoon I bought a bike for £30 with two flat tyres and rode it three miles home through city traffic.
I allowed myself a chuckle at the irony of it, in between trying not to die.
I allowed myself a chuckle at the irony of it, in between trying not to die.
They can't make big changes to the tyre specs mid-season, it's stupid, the teams have had a whole pre-season to develop their cars to suit the tyres, it would make all of that effort pointless and completely change the complexion of the championship.
It's the FIA's fault that they are stuck with this silly formula where piss-weak tyres are required to make the racing superficially interesting. And we just have to swallow it until next season, at the earliest.
It's the FIA's fault that they are stuck with this silly formula where piss-weak tyres are required to make the racing superficially interesting. And we just have to swallow it until next season, at the earliest.
I'm listening to an old-ish Radio 4 comedy series called Nebulous.
If you like old British sci-fi (Quatermass, Dr Who, JG Ballard) you will love it.
Edit: Just found out that Nick Briggs (the current voice of the Daleks) did all the cheesy sci-fi sound effects on an old Roland SH-101 (THE classic bass synth!).
I love this show.
If you like old British sci-fi (Quatermass, Dr Who, JG Ballard) you will love it.
Edit: Just found out that Nick Briggs (the current voice of the Daleks) did all the cheesy sci-fi sound effects on an old Roland SH-101 (THE classic bass synth!).
I love this show.
Last edited by thisnameistaken, .
Really bored of these tyres now, and the DRS and the KERS, but mainly the tyres. The drivers rarely even defend any more because they know it's pointless, they just wait until they have more grip than the other guy at another stage in the race and breeze back past with the gimmicks switched on.
Nice to see Alonso get a home win but it wasn't an exciting race.
Nice to see Alonso get a home win but it wasn't an exciting race.
Actually it reminds me of one of those new-fangled 'gaming' mouses that only children and morons buy.
Yes I bought four. Three different gauges of synthetic gut, and one very expensive real gut, which had better sound like angels singing or I'm going to be all sad face.
I think it looks hilarious. I like it.
I think they'll get one more season with Bale if they're lucky, then he'll be moving on. I can't see him signing another contract with Tottenham, not when he could get regular first team football anywhere in Europe.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG