Bob Obo

I had the weirdest problem with my C: Basically, I noticed a discrepency between the reported free space, and the actual amount of space being used. And it was slowly, but steadily growing. I ended up with about 10 gig of my hard drive mysteriously missing. I eventually traced the problem. The hidden system restore directory. I'd previously disabled system restore and disabled the service. Somehow Windows had then reeneabled it on the contorl panel, but not the service (fairly certain I didn't do it). It then began to eat my hard drive from beyond the grave. Fucking windows...

There are theories around that such universal constants aren't so universal. For instance that the speed of light has changed since the creation of the universe. I think its a good idea to assume nothing, other than that physicists are probably making it up as they go along...

I don't think it's any more of a tragedy that this guy died than when the guy across the street from me died. Reminds me when the media was crying their eyes out aboiut Princess Di doing so, but barely batting an eyelid when Mother Teresa died a week (or so) later. Then again, its still a tragedy. From what I understand, Steve Erwin did take risks, but being killed by a Stingray is nothing but a freak accident. Unless he was trying to poke it with a stick...

I wonder if other animals believe in a god? I think humans are inclined to believe in a god because we build things. We look at a car, a house, a beer tin, and know that it was created by someone. We look at the world and assume the same relationship. Of course, the logic is flawed, as the effect is only superficially similar, there is no reason to assume the same cause. To clarify - I'm an athiest, but I've known some very intelligent scientists (certainly more intelligient than me, although thats no great achievement ), who believe in God. They can never quite rationalise it though - it seems like people have a blind spot in their brains when it comes to religion...

I don't think that it's impossible for science and religion of co-exist. If you try to use science as a belief model (as science tends to be taught in schools), or if you try to use religion to explain the universe, sure - you run into trouble. Science is about asking how things work - or more precisely about creating models to help understand how certain elements of said things work. Religion is about asking why things work. Why are we here, why are we not off over there to the left or worse still French, etc... Of course its perfectly posssible to live without relying on religion for meaning. Meaning doesen't have to be bestowed by a higher power to give it validity. But if you get a sense of enlightenment and of community from believing in God, Buddha or the Tooth Fairy - good for you! The problem comes when people decide that their view - their Why, is more valid than others and should be imposed on everyone else. Hence, I am right, you are wrong (especially if you agree with me) and you all have to hold your breath until you die, or start to see Elvis. For your own good of course.

The question is, what exactly does swearing add? Yes, I agree it would add very slightly to the immersiveness - I don't belive the work fuck to be exclusive to the twentieth century. I agree, all things being equal - there's no reason not to include profanities. But, are all things equal? There's the obvous issue of context. A foulmouthed guard is a foulmouthed guard, but probably not so much in the presence of the noblewoman who employs him. Its going to take time, both to allow for that context, and for mappers to add it. Then there's the fact that a lot of people (for mostly puratanical reasons, certainly) don't want swaering included. Why purposfully alianate your audience? Certainly, you could record the samples, then mappers could not use them. As Oddity (if my alcohol addled memory serves) was strongly against the inclusion of a female thief - which mappers could choose not to use, as it would add nothing tangible to gameplay, but would take time to include, how is this any different?

So far, I've certainly been enjoying it. Yeah, there are a few problems - the inventory is rubbish (check the official forums as I saw a possible fix, but then the forums died and i need sleep). I've had some graphical glitches - dissapearing npc bodies mostly - conversing with a floating head or disembodied eyeballs is always fun if nothing else. No crashes or plot breaking stuff though. My PC is pretty close to the minimum - 2.4ghz, 512 ram, radeon 9600 pro. Graphics card sems to save me and with the exception of stuttering when it loads a new area it runs fine on medium detail. For my thief it plays infinitely better than morrowind so far. Yeah, its not as indepth as certain other games, but there's enough player involvement to keep you interested. I've suffered badly with the main quest and particually the first oblivion gate though. My level eight character entered having pretty much exclusively raised non comabt skills, expecting to maybe be able to sneak through. Oops. Hopefully the rest of the main quest will improve to allow more stealth or other approaches than combat, but in the meanwhile there's still the thieves guild and excellent dark brotherhood (designed by a former Thief 2 guy I think) to play with...

Does work for me. It doesn't stop the screen sucking in completely, but at least spares you the close up view of NPCs nostrils...

Strange. I haven't tried it myself yet, btu people on the official forums seem to think it works. You're editing the ini file in the "\my documents\My Games\Oblivion\" directory?

Tits

I'm enjoying playing a thief here. Not quite Thief, but infinitely better than Morrowind or Baldurs Gate etc with the 'press a button and hope' approach. On a par with Arx Fatalis, with a big open world as a bonus. fDlgFocus=2.1000 in the ini file - change this to a higher number like 4 to improve the zoom thing. In the CS go to setting and find sLoadingArea. Cahnge this to blank to get rid of the message.

Preciesly. (hello!) Science isn't about saying "This is the truth, its about saying this is the best explanation we can come up with given the current data, and it's liable to change as we learn more. Religion is about saying This is the truth. If you don't like it, we'll kill you. Amen. Unfortunately, people tend to like the latter as it gives them some sense of certainty - a sense of continuity, regardless of the fact that its senseless and brutal. People like to be led, they don't like to think...