Pre-Alpha, it almost certainly is a mock-up.

This whole kerfuffle is so pointless. Big budgets games are mostly bought by males so developers target them to males. Somer are androgynous (e.g. Bioware), some bland, alpha male and a-feminine (Call of Duty) and a few arguably stereotypically caricaturing of women (GTA).

If you publish a strong opinion on the internet and it garners attention, you will attract trolls. Surprise! The internet is full of assholes and bigots of all kinds not just mysoginists.

As far as casual or mobiles games, women already outnumber men. As games become culturally accepted entertainment for women, mobile games gravitate to bigger screens with faster chips, a more significant market for big budget games targeted at women will develop. There, end of story.

Remember that Russian dissident who was killed with polonium? He died from internal alpha particle toxicity because his killers put it in his food. It's actually a good way to poison someone since alpha radiation is easily stopped by small amounts of tissue, thus collateral damage (such as to close personal contacts) is minimal. However internalization of an alpha source can result in severe local tissue damage.

I would never handle an alpha particle emitter without gloves. Imagine if a small piece came off on your skin and you scratched yourself or rubbed your eye or something.

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

That cat is Alpha as fuck.

Vile, wrong and disgusting.
Basically Gagh.

Felt like a secret project movie for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

I think the bigger issue is not with difference in the facility that's housing inmates, it's the inmates themselves. That and the difference in the number of inmates being housed.

Prisons in America are filled with the closest that human beings can be to wild animals where their primal instincts guide most of their actions at all times. It's a cultural problem, in that such people are also like that before going to prison, so if they were placed into a luxurious retreat as shown in this video, it wouldn't work except with a small subset of prisoners.

Wild animals don't care much about being civil or civilized because that would mean demonstrating weakness, and a man in that position cannot afford to be made to look weak (as Mr. Woltz kind of said in The Godfather).

The primary goal of most prisoners in America with relation to everyone around them is to ensure they are perceived as tough. That means 10 prisoners sharing a living area will only be peaceful as long as it takes for someone to feel someone else is looking at them in a manner they dislike or until one guy bumps into another or one guy simply wants to assert his dominance as an alpha male by beating or shanking or raping another guy.

I don't think American prisoners need to be caged and punished like animals, just that when violent American criminals are being imprisoned, what you're doing in most cases is caging animals, regardless of how well or poorly the cage is designed.

ED is certainly one of the best games of the year. I got a HOTAS for it myself. Would love to have a Rift or even head tracking to support it.

Got to disagree with @shagen454 a bit on Shadow of Mordor which I liked a great deal. Wildstar was okay, but it and ESO both need to be F2P or B2P (ala GW2). AA, I dumped $150 on, and that is disappointing, though it was great at the time, I just burned myself out on it. Not as disappointing as Evil Within, my biggest regret of the video games I got this year. I agree Alien Isolation, was great, and I haven't spent enough time with Divinity to really evaluate it much. Hearthstone I can't even make it past the AI missions... lord I suck at video games.... probably shouldn't have got Lords of the Fallen given that I'm so bad at games as that game is brutal.

For others we have Gauntlet as a fun diversion, Hand of Fate, Nosgoth (been in since early beta), Road Redemption is a decent homage to Road Rash, South Park: Stick of Truth, Starbound, Zombies Monsters Robots is a fairly good F2P shooter... I can't remember if Kerbal Space Program came out this year or last... The Endless series (Dungeon of the Endless and Endless Legend)... The Evolve alphas (well, one alpha down so far, which was great and one coming this weekend, and more a next year game anyhow)... Titanfall was a great deal of fun.

At or at least near the top though is ED (I personally didn't stream it or make as many videos about it as I did others, it's still a great game). I'm glad I went with ED over Star Citizen, at least as they stand now. I seriously looked into head tracking, but it's just too pricey for me at the moment. I got a Thurstmaster X Flight HOTAS though off Craigslist for a decent price and that helped the game. I haven't updated it to Beta 3 yet, I'm sure I'll need to rebind stuff on the HOTAS and in Voice Attack... and this weekend is the Evolve alpha, so I'll probably be busy with that, especially as there is no NDA this time.

As far as I know, this is actually normal for a dominant male red kangaroo. The alpha male of each mob gets breeding rights with the females can get enormous in size.
They're nicknamed 'boomers' for a reason.

...said someone who knows nothing about the game.

the game is out..albeit in a very very early alpha state. you can play it right now, which by definition makes it very non-fictional

Thanks @kulpims.

Ive been a backer for a year and a half. So I've had access to their "pre pre pre pre pre pre Alpha" for some time now which allows you to walk around the hangar and see the ships you've purchased and climb into the cockpits and walk around, etc. Limited multiplayer dog fighting is available and some co-op modes. but not many of the ships are available for combat yet.

I've purposely not played it very much though. I could never be a game tester despite how much I game. I don't have a ton of patience for bugs and I just don't want to get burnt out on the game. I'd rather play the released game. but it is wild to see it grow and evolve right before your eyes.

Believe it or not though. I do get Mordhaus's frustration. The crowdfunding campaign has been going on for WAY longer than anyone has intended. CR himself never expected this kind of support. I've got hype fatigue myself. I get worn out following this game. the downvote was unnecessary though.

Actually, if they evolved to band together and follow the alpha/mother upon a noise from the alpha/mother, it's entirely possible he's had that behaviour transferred to him.

Looks good but after their last 3 games... I will have to wait to be excited.

You never know, I played the Divinity: Original Sin alpha and was somewhat impressed - let it go until final release and it's turned out to be an absolutely stellar game in the vein of Baldur's Gate meets Ultima.

I only wish the same for this game. I really liked the original DA, replayed it twice even though it is somewhat generic fare - but it did THAT so well!