I love Elder Scrolls (back to Morrowind), and thought Fallout 3 was very good but not great, but I just cannot get into Fallout 4 at all.

Some of my reasons coincide with Yahtzee here, but a lot are different. It's clunky, the dog does a great job of heroically jumping in my line of fire to take bullets / melee blows for enemies that I am trying to fight, pathfinding is significantly worse than Skyrim (and it was rather poor there), the crafting seems WAY too obsessed with needing 1 or 2 "rare" bits like the screws mentioned in the video that should be in *everything*, etc. etc.

The city building as an upgrade to Hearthfires in Skyrim is pretty cool, but should be a back-burner *optional* thing that encourages you to check it out because it gives cool rewards rather than because the very first set of hobos that you run into want you to do everything for them.

...Take all of that with a grain or three of salt, because I only played for a few days before I got thoroughly annoyed with it and haven't been back since. Skyrim gets new mods that add fun content or make it look *way* better than Fallout 4 does all the time. And I like the setting and lore better, but that is a personal preference. But basically, even after playing through the main story and all of the factions many multiple times each, I still periodically find myself getting interested in another run through Skyrim with a new set of mods. Fallout 4 might get good once the community gets hold of the creation kit for it, but for now I have zero interest in even giving it a more thorough shot to catch my attention.

Wow, powerful video. I think this is why certain psychedelics, can (can) help people with addictions or even people with simple obsessions (porno, video games, etc). They have the potential to temporarily exit the cage for self reflection or experience outside of it. Some of the more powerful ones (iboga, ayahuasca) really physiologically reset the afflicted receptor sites - and much much more.

I agree whole-heartily that the way that the US handles drug addiction, mental illness & criminality are completely out of whack. Implying that the direct parallels between those subjects are ignorance (or taboo), incarceration & the lack of clear, precise scientifically proven reformation.

And the shitty, shitty Fallout Shelter -- which I obsess over daily. Oh but it's so shitty (yet I play it every day). What is WRONG with me?!

This comes up a bit short on some issues.

For instance, the ongoing drought in the Euphrates-Tigris area pushed people in Syria into the cities, adding pressure to already overstretched infrastructure.

Also, what about the West's glorious idea to run illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Libya, which destabilized the entire region? Nevermind Afghanistan or the bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. What about the gulag that is Palestine? What about the economic consequences of our obsession with free trade, taking away from developing countries the ability to protect and nurture their own industries? What about our subsidies of farm exports, thereby undercutting local farmers and destroying these peoples' ability to feed themselves?

All of these countries have heaps of issues of their own, but let's not forget that "we" not only didn't help, but actively made things worse in many cases. As cities drain resources from the hinterland, so do our centers of capitalism drain resources from developing nations. They are our hinterland.

Yugoslavia seems to have been forgotten by most people, but the split and following neoliberal treatment left the entire area in a state of instability. Kosovo today is basically run by organised crime.

So, as horrible as Assad's actions are, very few countries are in a position to offer meaningful criticism, having pissed away what little moral authority we had to begin with.

And as far as legal responsibilities towards refugees go, I'd say after torture, wars of aggression, global espionage, a stateless people in Europe (Roma/Sinti), destruction of a society (Greece), an openly xenophobic regime (Hungary), etc, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that "rights" are meaningless unless actively enforced by someone with the required amount of power.

Look at Calais, look at Lesbos, look at Lampedusa, and tell me all about our European morals and values...

Written by the grandson of a man whose family fled from Silesia in '45 with nothing but two bags and walked all the way to Lower Saxony on foot.

I say incorrectly secured in the exact fashion that it means. If the gun owner had taken care of their weapon and either made it inaccessible or unusable, then the incidents would not have happened. For instance, in the Sandy Hook shooting, the mother knew her son was mentally unstable and did not properly secure her weapons. This led to her death, followed by many others.

Gun safety means you treat your gun as a deadly weapon, and you secure it so that someone who should not have access to it cannot get it. If you don't, then bad things happen.

We do not have an obsession or addiction to guns, we have a right to them. Like it or not, we are not like other countries and never have been. This defines us and also creates uniquely difficult situations if we do not pay the proper respect to those rights. You can make thinly veiled comments about me being an addict or substance abuser if you like, I prefer to think that I am a citizen of a country unlike any other to this date in history. If that pisses you off, so be it.

I would also like to note that while I have been extremely civil and logical to this point, I have been constantly subjected to comments that try to loop me in with the radical gun nuts. I cannot stress enough that I am not, that I do think we need further gun control. It's as if people can't field a valid argument and feel the need to paint me as such instead, ignoring my repeated comments to the contrary.

I don't want guns banned, but I want them to be like in most other civilized countries where shootings, mass shootings and gun suicides are far less per capita. Severely controlled.

America has an obsession and even addiction to guns, which is shown in the people trying to blame everything else - @Mordhaus you say stuff like "incorrectly secured gun" as if the incorrectly secured somehow negates the gun part. If it was a incorrectly secured handgrenade, what then? Or an incorrectly secured machete?

I'm not saying you're a bad person at all (or tha other pro-gun people are), but this is what alcoholics or substance abusers do about their substance.

This is insane! Im in such an Auralnauts obsession atm *promote

I was a 15 year old boy that wore dresses, disliked superhero comics, played in a band, and competed in academics. When I was 30 I started reading superhero comic books (obsessively) but I still wear dresses.

Perhaps one day you will discover your superhero chi. It is never too late.

Deadpool on the other hand is a mostly childish, yet mindbending and fourth wall breaking character that spans the comic book multiverse beyond even Marvel comics, having a direct counterpart in DC that is less wacky, both of which reference each other incognito through narrative.

There's quite a bit of fun science fiction going on simultaneous with the 15 year old boy jargon, based in more than just the silliness of the comics themselves, but the politics of comics writers and artists. Far more interesting than the even more popular Star Wars B.S. happening this Christmas, which I think is a six year old boy demographic.

I don't think it's supposed to be taken in a general way and applied to "gay" people, but rather telling the story that isn't very often heard about those people who don't identify as either gay or straight, or who fall into the bisexual, asexual or questioning (gay/bi/trans curious) categories of the LGBT[QIA].

The truth is, we want to believe SO BADLY as a society that we are either gay or straight. And then we want to label ourselves to find community and identity SO BADLY, that some people get caught in the middle of two (or more!) different worlds, and that neither normative communities quite describe their sexuality. Hence the final comparison with the romantic comedy Sliding Doors. Also, that's why these crazy parties exist in the first place. (You're NOT invited.)

Let's see, there's:

L is for Lesbian, which is women's special gay letter. Technically you could just call LGBT, GBT, as some women identify as gay but not lesbian, or vice versa, or both. But women are special because of feminism, so they get L and G but men only get G.

Don't get on my ass because I speak the truth. I attend plenty enough GBT events to know the fluctuating social stigmas within the group, as well as the bitter rivalries between different letters of the acronym (or those who want to lengthen or shorten the representative letters). It's confusing to people who have this misconception that all stories of gay or lesbian people apply to all gay or lesbian people. It's so diverse, what's even the point of labels any more?

Anyway, moving on.

G is for Gay, which is women or men, but in common usage was (or is, depending on your perspective) for men. Yet as time goes on and the information age fills in our social gaps, women have begun to identify as gay. In fact, I have a genderfluid friend who was born female, but often identifies as a gay male, and has even been accepted into the ranks of the the Gay Men's Chorus. Take that label obsessed society!!

B is for Bisexual, which is a broad category that I'd say more aptly covers this situation, but even more so I think the Q (Questioning) with a little or a lot of A (Asexual) of the greater acronym LGBTQ or LGBTQIA is an even better term for these two star crossed lovers.

T is for Transgender, which is another broad category but with very specific splinter factions of crossdressers, transexuals, transvestites, genderfluid, etc. etc. Some of these terms, depending on the context are either outdated, have new or older and more specific defining characteristics, or even more often, people define themselves as the umbrella term itself, transgender, because the feelings of one or the other specifics oscillates and changes as transgender people (male and female) age. I know trans people of all ages and wow, the perspectives are vast, and are rarely consistent throughout the years. (You just DON'T know how you'll identify at the age of 65+.)

Q is for Questioning, which is for people who just don't know what they are. This one is really an open ended letter and often isn't included because it represents an ignorance of the self. Maybe you figure out your sexuality or gender specifics right away or maybe it takes you years of experimentation to find your niche. Or maybe you transcend the boundaries forever, always changing and never staying the same throughout the years. The main thing here is that you don't know. Maybe you have a gay romance and then you're like, "Damn, I'm definitely straight" and now you're not even part of LGBT. Q is like the gateway letter. lol

I is for Intersex, which is for people who have genitalia or other gender defining anatomy which is different, not entirely present, is equally both, or more of one than the other. Look it up, because I'm the least familiar with this one, though I do have friends who are intersex. I just haven't asked them enough specifics out of respect. Also, recent research into genetics has shown that you could have a portion of your body that isn't gender defining, but which is made up of the opposite sex's genetic code. I've heard of people who have had their toe or their heart identified as male, but the rest of their body is female. Some people will never even know they're intersex, and depending on what part of their body is intersex, may not experience any feelings other than their body's dominant sex. (I don't have a scientific link, but it was part of a topic that I attended at PRIDE.

A is for Asexual, which is for people who don't have sexual feelings, or who don't act on sexual feelings for any number of reasons intellectual, physical, or both. I don't know how broad this category is but I myself go through periods (sometimes years) of asexuality. A defining characteristic for some people who have misidentified as gay or bi. For example, my parents thought I was gay and I had friends who would openly call me gay, despite me not showing ANY sexual emotions towards either sex. Though I did have both guys and girls who would hit on me or have sex (oral or otherwise) with me on the down low, despite my half interest in both! People are curious and when you can't figure out someone's sexual identity, some people will lay it on so thick, it could be seen as sexual harassment. I knew several girls that just wanted to have sex with me so bad to figure out if I was gay or straight. I just didn't care about either sexes at the time, though I was pleasantly stimulated to varied effects.

I think this is the story that isn't told. If you're asexual or going through an asexual period, that doesn't make you gay!

There could be more movies or shorts out there telling this story, but this is the first honest look into the Q and A of LGBT that I've ever seen. Shit, and I thought when I published my book I'd be the first. Damn. heh

There are definitely people that look better one way or the other. A groomed beard can cover up features that are less than appealing. It's not bad to try to make yourself look better although I'd say obsessing about your looks is a problem. Find a look that suits you and run with it.
I wonder how many guys they had to film before they found one that looked good before and after and also got good responses from family.

I would get absolutely NOWHERE in this game.

I'd spend the first twelve hours of play seeing exactly how much of that marketplace I could break, wreck, ruin or otherwise damage in various ways.

OCD = Obsessive/compulsive destruction, that's me.

OMFG... really bob... really... It's people like you that made me ashamed of being a Christian when I was a Christian. Completely believing anything they are told or read from someone with supposed authority without actual critical thought of the original source themselves.

I've hear that Jefferson never meant to exclude religion from politics and believed and repeated it myself for years. Then you know what I did? I actually read the letter that Jefferson wrote. I could have my son, who's going into 6th grade read it and he'd tell you the same thing I'm about to tell you. It's about keeping religion from unduly influencing politics. Especially when you read it in context with the letter that the church sent him that he was responding to, and it becomes more apparent if you read his drafts which were much more to the point.

Yes the phrase "wall of separation" does come from the letter and not the Constitution, but the 1st Amendment includes an establishment clause that prevents the government from favoring one religion over the others. Remember the pilgrims came here to escape a Christian nation that favored one form of Christianity over all others. Admittedly they were more about the fact they couldn't persecute others the way they thought they God wanted them to, but it was the government's church that prevented them from doing so. You can't even be King or Queen of England unless you belong to the Church of England, and if you were Catholic at some point in your past, you are disqualified, even to this day. Yeah, the Church of England no longer has as much influence over the laws as it did when the pilgrims and other early settlers escaped England to come here,

And if the only reason Christians are good is because of fear of punishment or hope for reward, then they are horrible people. Millions of people are good because they are good people without their faith dictating to them to be so. Most people of other faiths are good without the racist brutal Abramic God of the Bible. Most atheists are good without any god. Most pagans are good with their various gods. This insane all morality comes from God alone didn't make sense even when I was at my most evangelical, Fox News watching/defending mode. There were too many people in the world who's good without God and even in those days the concept that somebody would be good only because the Bible tells them so, or they are afraid of God's wrath if they don't is backwards. And as I read the Bible more and more, it became apparent that the far rights obsession with people's sin over love was misplaced (though the far right's sickening defense of Dugger shows a great deal of hypocrisy since if Dugger was on the Left, they'd be all about his sin rather than showing any sort of love, it's when others sin differently than they do they get upset, like at the gays). It was reading the Bible that moved me to the left as the clear Christian way, since the right defends and loves the people Jesus condemned and shames the people that Jesus defended and told us to love and help. It eventually got to the point I couldn't hold onto faith when over half the Christians of this Nation just blindly follow what they are told in church and on Fox News over the truth that Jesus and the Bible was teaching and thinking they were doing the Christian thing at the same time. I then began to do a critical analysts further and eventually became an atheist, because they are all equally bad/good. There is nothing new or original in the Abramic faiths that wasn't there before or since either in the same region or elsewhere... all those other elsewhere's where Jehovah somehow couldn't make himself known, as if he was just a figment of one small regional tribe or worse a racist jerk not worthy of following.

Anyhow, the best way to maintain Christianity is to keep it out of politics. Because what happens if you set things up to let religion influence politics and the Muslims gain power? Then you'll be crying how religion shouldn't influence politics. Or perhaps not that extreme, perhaps some form of Christianity that other Christian's don't agree with gains power and influence? Perhaps the Morman's or the Catholics or the Jehovah Witness? At what point does religious influence stop? When laws are passed that any church that doesn't practice or allow the speaking in tongues is outlawed? The 1st Amendment is designed to keep religion out of politics in order to protect religion.

Let's break that last sentience out again. The 1st Amendment's establishment clause is designed to keep religion out of politics in order to protect religion. The whole point is to keep one form of one faith from dominating all other forms of the same or other faiths. It protects those other forms Christianity and other faiths.

Finally there is no war on Christianity. I admitted that long before my fall from faith. I was there with it all, with how it was targeted, but the reality is there is no war on Christianity here... all that's happening is specific forms of Christianity are loosing their influence on other Christians and society as a whole, and they are very vocal about how it's persecution, because like the pilgrims, they are no longer allowed to persecute others the way they want to. Maybe if the people screaming about how Christianity is being persecuted while they try to deny equal rights to others because they sin differently than us, would actually show the love of Christ and behave the way He actually would have in modern society rather than trying to show how Christian they are, then perhaps Christianity wouldn't be losing the numbers they are. I know I, and many other atheists, likely wouldn't have had at crisis of faith if it wasn't for the far right. I never would have explored the logical and theological problems with Christianity and the Abramic faiths... I'd probably eventually found a more Quaker, left leaning (most the Quaker "Friends" related churches in this area are the far evangelical right Fox News types) type church that seems to be more in line with the Bible and teachings of Jesus, but the far right pushed me into a far more critical mode than I would likely ever have gone to on my own. So keep it up those on the far right, you are the ones destroying and making a war on Christianity. You push more and more people away, and more and more people stop seeing any difference between the far right and radical Islam.

"Why should any society capitulate for such an insignificant demographic group?

Gays make up less then 4% of population. "

We are talking about letting two people marry each other, in what way exactly is this capitulation?

The gun fondling nutters in the NRA make up about 1% of the population. Personally, I think their obsession with guns is rather perverse and more than a little creepy. Why cant we just take away their right to bear arms? They are just 1%! why should they have the same rights as other people?

Mormons are like less than 4% too, Take away their freedom of religion! No need to give them the same rights as catholics?

I'm confused on why the religious right want to deny equal rights to people. Even if it is a sin, it doesn't effect anyone but themselves. Jesus spent His whole time hanging with sinners and ministering to them. He wouldn't be arguing against them having equal rights under the law just because they sin differently than others. He taught again and again that Love was the greatest Commandment, that being all self righteous and showing how holy you are was bad. Modern Christianity has turned from love to a denial of equal rights under the law based on people sinning differently than they do. Let they without sin cast the first stone... and yet they cast their stones in the form of votes and denying products/services with their business and so on because they don't like the sin, as if they are so holy and sin free theme selves. Not only did Jesus say let those without sin cast the first stone, He Himself, with out sin didn't cast any stones. These holy crusaders ask, "What Would Jesus Do" but then ignore what He'd actually do... Why this obsession over people sinning differently than they do? If that sin doesn't hurt anyone else directly, then who cares? If God wants to convict them of their sin, then let Him do it, not us... it's almost as if the Christian Right don't think God is doing enough convicting and are trying to do it themselves, as if God isn't strong enough to do it, or it upsets them so much they don't want to let go and let God...

And why does Sodom get the rap for gay stuff and sodomy? The Bible specifically says the sin of Sodom was being a land of plenty without enough concern for the needy and the poor (basically full of Republicans). "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy." - NIV. "This is what your sister Sodom has done wrong. She and her daughters were proud that they had plenty of food and had peace and security. They didn't help the poor and the needy." - God's Word... all versions equal to the same basic thing... People blame the gays on correlative texts, mostly relating to what happened to the angels when they arrived to rescue Lot's family... where Lot offered his betrothed daughters to be raped instead (which by Biblical law meant they'd have to be stoned to death as well as their rapist, though one could perhaps argue that Deuteronomy 22:23-24 comes after the story of Sodom so that law might not yet have applied). Anyhow, the Bible speaks that the Sin of Sodom was not helping the needy and the poor... why God, who knows every single secret thought you have ever had or ever will have before you were even formed in the womb (before the foundations of the world were even formed) and yet needs angels to see if there are good people???

And a million and one more rants...

I don't understand this desire to try and "one up" scientific thought, as if the concept of a demiurge were religion's alone. It's not for man to decide what is truth and what is not, it is for us to discover only that which we may mechanically use, whether through ystem theories, mathematic constructs, or physically engineered structures.

Science may be harmonious but only if it is honest and seeks only that which is not fueled by attachment to being. Any reward, whether in heaven or on earth is a materialistic concept which separates us from the body of human experience. Rather than naturally progress within our own capabilities, we obsess over grand concepts of our narcissistic, non transitory being and the entity of of a God. Meanwhile, our minds suffer at the leaps and bounds that imagination inflicts upon our honest beings. Behavior modification for the sake of a concept you would seek to elevate over the hard earned work of the scientific process.

Again, I don't understand why you pounce on these sudden epiphany driven straws lying amidst a rigorously disciplined field as the sciences. You have straws with no tangible truth, only the ability to prove that, yes, you are a pattern detecting being. I can find a 1000 faces of a 1000 gods in a spackled piece of drywall, don't mean any one of them is real or if any were, that it's the god that I've put a name to.

Now for a lesson in system analysis: determining whether the pattern you've detected within a metaphysical concept is congruent with reality as we know it, or have you detected a false positive. Also known as the proof between a Christian God and every other concept of the concept of God, through all its faces back to its ultimate being: Infinity. The Infinity could be ANYTHING.