Randox
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Posts posted by Randox
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Best free online FPS? Crossfire.
How is the population doing? I was in the test for that (assume it's open now), and it was really fun, but they had this system where if you lost a match then all your items lost a durability, and to make a long and boring story short, it became a barrier to playing the game at all. You had to page hop to work out what items you needed to farm to replace your gear and make new stuff, and you could get stuck using low quality parts while trying to farm out the rest of the stuff you needed. It was work, and it drove people away.
I know they changed the model since, but the last time I hopped on, it looked like the damage was already done. Looked like everyone had already left before they abandoned the durability system. The worst part is, it was actually a really neat idea in the details. It was an honest stab at creating a functional economy that could be enjoyed by paying and non paying customers in a way that would resist power creep. It was also nearly universally despised, because people don't like their stuff breaking; especially not people who paid real money for it in the first place.
Anyway, if the population is starting to recover, I might give the game another shot. Roboblocks or whatever it's called was my thing for a while, but that game seems to have fallen face first into a pile of cocaine and I don't understand it anymore. Tis' a shame, was one of few fremium games with good prices that I was actually happy to pay from time to time. But the game kept changing too much, too often, and I couldn't keep up. Now when I get tired of World of Tanks, I play World of Warships.
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I mostly mention it to motivate myself to do something about it if not at least keep better record of it. I've been waiting to see if it'll just go away on its own for what feels like forever
You need to get this checked out. There is a list of things that can cause this, and I assure you that none of them are good (though some much worse than others). Also, colonoscopies aren't that bad (I've had a few). By far the worst part in my experience is the day before when you get to purge your system and then not eat anything, though they've managed to make the purging agent taste way better. For the actual procedure you get a couple drugs to dull sensation and make you relax (they also interfere with time perception and the formation of memories, so you'll think it only takes 5 minutes and you wont remember much of it).
My condolences Maddy, I can't imagine what you are going through.
Oh, and I've found a reference work for world building science fiction, which is frankly interesting even if you aren't toying with trying to form a story. I have one in mind, but I need to do some serious world building first, and this promises to be quite interesting. Also, a lot of work.
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I've been getting back into Far Cry 4 (I started playing last summer; I like to wait until games are old news to give them a spin apparently). I really like the game in general, and some of the detailed touches are quite good. Didn't really expect that the writing in Far Cry 3 was going to look so good by comparison though. The problem with Far Cry 3 though was mostly laziness I think. There is actually a really good, possibly even thought provoking story hidden in that game, totally obscured by lazy shortcuts and the realities of game design. But far cry 4...
It's...it's like someone sat down and planned out the story over the course of say 100 missions, but then when the first 20 missions had been made that number go slashed down to 40. The first half the game goes into so much detail and seems to be setting up all this character development, then out of know where the story just accelerates off into the distance like it's trying to win some unseen race, only too, I presume, slow right back down at the end and use the last 3 or 4 missions to wrap things up at a good pace (I'm not quite there yet).
It's disappointing. The beginning of the game was really good, and now that I'm 6 main missions away from the end, it feels like the game is trying to wrap things up so it can take an early lunch. In Far Cry 3, I think you unlock the second island around 60% of the way through the game. The first island certainly has more missions, including a few that really aren't needed if you ask me (the Buck missions feel really drawn out), but the second island doesn't feel rushed. I feel like I've unlocked the north of Kyrat 90% into the game, but I'm barely halfway into the story.
Anyway, it's fun, and I look forward to trying it again without all the help from the minimap and spotting indicators and whatnot. That should be a lot of fun, I just didn't want to try that on my first run.
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SSD's work best for strait data reads, like booting up the computer or starting Microsoft word, where the SSD is still the slowest element in the process. On the other hand, most games do data processing when they start up, so they have other things holding them back and will realise a smaller improvement. More modern games do seem to be better about actually saving their processed assets though, so it varies a lot by game (I find most games load two or three times faster on SSD, though I could achieve almost the same effect by loading off a USB 3 memory stick).
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Finally got around to getting my new hardware setup. I guess I still need to reinstall Windows, so I'll be doing this all again anyway, but I've been itching to start putting things through their paces.
Turns out my power supply wasn't up to the task. Not a huge shock. Was able to pick up a new one today, an 800W to replace the 650. It's a weird setup if I'm being honest, but it allowed me to support the local shop that's been giving me some advice, and it means it got replaced today. The combined 3.3 and 5V rails are actually smaller than the old PSU, and it has a lot fewer SATA and Molex connectors (and their in pairs on the same lines, so the way my drives are spaced out one of my HDD's is on an adaptor, even though there are nominally enough SATA headers for everything that wants one), and 4 6+2 pin PCIe connectors, in pairs, which is a little iffy if you ask me. Forgot to check to see if both +2 pins are bonded to the same wires (so that one of the 3 base pairs on each strand are powering half of the total 16 connector pins on the strand: two of each 6 pin connector and both +2 connectors). I'm not sure I'd be shocked.
In any event, it's neither here nor there. The guy I bought the thing from uses that power supply, and I know he runs his hardware a lot harder than I'm ever likely too, so I'm satisfied that the PSU is designed to meet it's own operating abilities.
Also, my new 480 is a hilariously large step up from the 7950 it replaced. I've actually not yet had the chance to run it hard enough for the fans on the GPU to turn on, and the performance is spectacular.
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Congratulations to Miss Lioness, our newest Super Moderator. Miss Lioness has been doing fantastic work, so we've decided to give her a shiny new hammer as an early Christmas present!
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Few days late on this, but the reason i was so grossed out by a girl asking me to have sex with her while she's on her period is because blood really freaks me out. There have been occasions where i would faint at the sight of a lot of blood. I even faint sometimes when i have to get blood drawn from me. So the idea of having sex with someone on her period... Yikes.
Yeah, I could see that being a problem if you faint at the sight of blood.
I managed to deal with my computer by putting my second hard drive onto a different line (but still the same rail). Not sure why 3 drives on one string was giving it issues, but there you go. Should be able to move things around so that I can plug my DVD drive back in too. In any event, my SSD is now copying to my media drive while Steam Downloads to the main drive, and nothing is losing power, so all is good. Probably still want to replace my PSU though. I think Solid Gear falls into the 'makes PSU shaped objects' segment of the market, or close to it. But then, that information comes from people who probably haven't given anyone else a chance in the last half decade, so I've never totally sure.
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Media drive isn't dying, it's just writing to a Hard Drive experiencing frequent unexpected power loss causes corruption. Shocker. I figure I'm probably in for a new PSU, but in the meantime I need to see if I can keep all 3 drives running by using both lines, or if I need to rig my spare PSU to run some of the drives (because that wouldn't be excessive in any way).
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My trusty media storage drive may, or may not, be dying, though I think I just accidentally figured out that my PSU is failing spectacularly to supply sufficient power to my 3 storage drives on a cable, so that's going to be fun to fix (though I'm 90% positive that I've had them wired that way for a long time). In any event, chkdsk time.
My computer has developed a weird issue where it runs like molasses when it starts, until I run a game, at which point it runs fine thereafter (though now I'm wondering if my power setup isn't at least playing into this issue). In any event, rather than waste too much time working that one out, I'm reinstalling Windows since I need to do it anyway (it's a BIOS installation, and my new GPU will need UEFI), and it means finally moving windows to my SSD (this was impossible to do while I was still in Windows 7 if I didn't want to buy a new license). I need that media drive working though, since it's supposed to play host to all the information from the other drives (the SSD needs to be reformatted, and the primary HDD should be reformatted and properly partitioned). Jury is out on whether I want to convert the media drive to GPT too. It'll take a long time, but as the drive gets older, having that drive be a single partition is starting to get pretty scary.
In any event, at Windows behest, the media drive is going to have to undergo a full chkdisk recovery and fix procedure, so that's fun. At least my computer can keep running.
Oh, and my front USB 3 ports aren't working again. Probably bent a pin. Not a fan of that header design; the pins should never be the first thing to engage (because pins bend if you do that).
I should probably look into testing my PSU too. Bah.
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I never was any good at AoE, but I could only play it friends houses, and I'm demonstrably bad at strategy games anyway. Still, I have fond memories of AoE (and Empire Earth), and I quite enjoy the HD remake. Go Byzantines!
Made my pick for my new GPU on Cyber Monday. I changed my mind a lot of times up till the end, but in the end, despite the exchangerate and inflated prices turning all GPU purchases into highway robbery, I decided to go for an ASUS 480 Strix that was on a pretty big sale. I was thinking about saving an unreasonable amount of money with a 4GB model, but I wont upgrade again for at least 3 years, and by the looks of things, I wont have any need to replace my CPU next year, so I plan on getting into VR instead, so I want a GPU I can flog a bit. Speaking of flogging, I'm genuinely interested to see if my CPU will actually be totally obsolete before my next GPU upgrade. DDR4 memory has so far failed to address the memory gap (we need a faster response time more than increased bandwidth), and quantum physics is currently preventing smaller die sizes, so the already very slow increases in performance are looking to get even slower for at least a couple years.
AoE is a Windows only game, I think published by Microsoft. It's not demanding though, so I'm sure Wine is up to the task.
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I would avoid studying in your dorm/house. If you really want to study in your own place, at least do something like designate a chair as 'the study chair', and do nothing but study when you sit in it. I prefer going someplace like the library, simply because it gives you fewer options to do other stuff (leave your phone behind if you have to), but also an association thing (which is why I recommend the chair).
I find it helps me, at least.
Still trying to make a final pick for a new GPU to get this year. I think I've been convinced to stay on team Red pending more DX12 and Vulkan based game releases, along with better long term driver support, but I'm still hoping to see more cards go on sale, or on bigger sales. AMD vendors seem to be secretly trying to kill AMD by charging more vs the comparable Nvidia models. I'm also back at the classic problem that everything AMD makes seems to want to light your computer on fire. The Gigabyte G1 or Windforce are currently my best bet, though the G1 seems to be having hardware problems, as is Saphires card, so that's fun. I've been absolutely tickled pink with my ASUS mobo, so at this point I'd be pretty happy if they'd go on sale since I'd just as soon buy from them. Same goes for XFX, from whom I bought my current GPU.
Oh well, fun times.
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My Summer Car.
It is at the same time one of the dumbest, and one of the greatest games I have ever played.
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Isn't it interesting that even if transgender and schizophrenic people are such minority that they make up a large portion of activity on this thread the last 10 pages?
This is a large part of why I like these forums so much.
I think about how much social attitudes have changed even in my own lifetime (or a little over half of it, since I obviously wasn't paying a lot of attention to this stuff as a child). Part of that has been a change to the people I was exposed to (while my family is white collar middle class, I was raised in an all white rural area and went to school with some spectacularly racist+ people), part of that has been some pretty dramatic changes to society as a whole. Without advocating a 'wait and let it happen' approach, I am amazed on a personal level how well a lot of people do deal with being asked to change fundamental assumptions about how they view the world. I wish more of those revelations regarded how people interact with women, but I'm still happy to see a more progressive trend.
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I'm not surprised. I was optimistic in the last couple of weeks, especially after the Scholastic Children's vote (which has historically be quite accurate). Mostly it just seems surreal.
I still don't get how he can be a champion of the working class. I think I've come to understand all the other reasons people support him, and to an extent, I sympathise with many of them, but looking out for the little guy? To me, it looks like he has spent his life doing the exact opposite, exporting their jobs, running that scam of a school, not paying federal income tax. He didn't work his way up from nothing, there is no example of the american success story there either. He's not even that successful as a businessman, just wildly successful as a brand manager. But yeah, too me, it's people like him pulling the political strings that helped get a lot of people in the terrible situations they are in right now.
Anyone have an over under on how long before he gets bored and delegates to Pence? I'll be pretty surprised if that never happens. He's been pretty clear that aside from a couple pet projects, he's just in it to win, and doesn't really care about most of the job anyway. Perfect person to be VP for though.
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One major downfall about living in my province: everything is sky-high expensive.
Nothing like a high cost of living to eat away at your salary. I've been starting to look into cost of living around Canada myself, thinking about future employment. I am thinking about taking a job that could see me posted in other parts of the country, but the pay doesn't change if that happens, and my money will go much further where I am now than in someplace like Vancouver or Toronto.
In other news, I've discovered that some of my laptops performance issues are simply age related, and not because its installation of Windows was figuratively sinking like Atlantis. In particular, my poor laptop legitimately stuggles to palyback HD media content. I think it can handle normal 720p from youtube, but playing anything recorded at 60fps causes a stutter ever few seconds. It seems to warm up to Netflix at least, though I don't think it's hitting HD resoltions.
For the most part, it's not a huge issue, and it can still handle Blu-Ray DVD's and such, it's just an annoyance. On the upside, the wireless card is as strong as ever, so it's not struggling to buffer or anything. I also noticed that I can indeed move the clock in Linux, which is good, because not having it right in the bottom right corner was driving me loopy.
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Cold here. Just...cold. For the Americans, it's been low 60's during the day, and into the 40's at night (17 in the day, 7 at night).
In fun times news, I finally dealt with my old laptop. I've been neglecting it for years, since I never really use the thing, but my PC can't reach my TV anymore in my new place, so I'm using the laptop as my new media centre, and I need the thing to work without jumping through ridiculous hoops. Reinstalling windows has given the machine a new lease on life, but running Windows Vista isn't exactly where I want to be, so I've decided to throw Cub Linux on as a dual boot (which I am using now).
So far so good. Linux is a lot lighter than vista, so my laptop is probably faster now than when I bought it (6 years ago), and it's much more up to date, so it's coping better with the modern world. Unfortunately, I did have to drop Chromium for Chrome, so I can watch Netflix, but on the bright side, it imported all my settings, so that's nice. The Chromium logo looked cooler though.
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Holy shit, Randox. Were ya drinking?
I wish.
Sounds like you're having a great time Saq. Either way, it sounds like some great experiences, and you'll probably look back on it all and laugh, if you aren't laughing now. Reminds me of a camping trip a few years back where a couple guys who set up their tent with the groundsheet sticking out a bit, and woke up the next morning to find several inches of standing water in the low corner of their tent. That was kind of the recurring theme for them on that trip, though I think they still had lots of fun regardless.
Sleeping on a boat in a storm actually sounds kind of fun (to me), though I might go for something a little smaller. Depends on the boat too. Slept on my Uncles sailing yacht once. Not sure if it was the weather or the design, but there was so much condensation inside the next morning it was basically raining. Of course, I was young and didn't care, because I got to sleep on a boat.
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A couple days ago I accidentally brought my elbow down on the drinking glass next to my chair. Looked down, and noticed a nice piece of glass sticking out of my arm just above the elbow. Apparently my arm broke a section of the glass off into 3 pieces, all of them triangles. The ones on either side are pointed down, while the one in the center formed a nice little dagger pointing up. All things considered, it looks like I got pretty lucky. Looks like one of the other pieces helped lever my arm away from the glass (and a deeper wound), which I thought was a nice touch. Didn't notice the abrasion that left until later.
That's my fifth and sixth stitches I can remember having, and no broken bones (yet). All things considered, not too bad :D
This is the littler bugger that did it. Looks like it went in around 1/2".
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Spent the last week or so moving. I own more things than I thought. Also, as I'm sure anyone who has ever moved as gone through, the process has been more...interesting than anticipated. I'm still not really moved in, but my computer is actually hooked up now, not that I have much time to use it yet. Also, hiring movers cost more than I expected, but some of my stuff was never moving without them, not inside a month at least. This will be the first place I've had that I can really call mine, that doesn't come with other people. Fun times.
The only problems are going to be on the electronics front. In my old place, my TV and stereo were right next to my computer, so I've grown accustomed to everything being hooked up to my PC. Now my office is essentially a loft above my living room, and there is no good way to run cables. The internet is also worse. I'm going to look at wireless HDMI, but I might just save the money and watch netflix and youtube on the PC.
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Basically expert mode changes the recipes of most machines to require previous machines in order to make. So it takes a typical kitchen sink pack and makes it into one of the most challenging progression packs without a quest book.
So you run into some unexpected challenges such as the monsterous task of doing something as simple as making your first bucket which requires iron plates instead of bars.
Oh okay. I never looked into expert mode. Not going to lie either, that sounds kind of terrible :D
It's a neat idea, but I've been away from the game for 3 years and even the mods I know and love have changed. There is a lot for me to explore before I feel any need to increase the challenge like that.
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Regrowth looks pretty interesting, might need to try that one actually. Will be doubly interesting since I have decided to base my current infrastructure on Ender IO this time. Regrowth doesn't have that, and shaking things up is nice.
Not sure what you mean by the progression being locked by IC2 though. Did they tweak the mods so that IC2 is actually the primary means of progression then? Not sure what that would look like.
Anyway, for now at least I am trying to branch out into mods like Ender IO, and soon Botania and maybe Bloodcraft that I have never played before. I'm up in the air about some of the mods I have used in the past, either because I think they could unbalance the experience, or because I simply want to try new things before I go back to things I know how to do in mods like Thermal Expansion.
I also need to stop using the morph mod, but at least in the Nether, I am finding it necessary. The portal I built in what is now my permanent base sends to a cave in the roof, and I am finding the Nether to be more vertical than I remember. Turning into a bat has allowed me to gather some lava and find a Nether Fortress 500m away (that took a solid 30 minutes of flying. Seriously, I remember the nether being more open than this). In lieu of a jetpack, I am thinking about a return to my roots and building a transportation network. The Nether Network was probably my best technical creation in my first ever world.
I also need to look and see if I still have my original world, and if so, if I can again find a utility to cut part of that world into a new one. The versions might be too far removed, but I would love for Castle Island to make a return:
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It's not complete, and the style isn't great, but that project has spanned a few worlds now, and even if it wasn't my main base, I think I would be happier knowing that it still existed. Not sure I have pictures for it, but the last time I saw Castle Island, I was setting up a Red Power Computer in the tower and control shields for the entire island. That project was a huge undertaking. I am a bit sad that computer mod is gone now, replaced entirely by computercraft, simply because the aesthetic of the red stone computers was just so good, and because programming in FORTH was just so much fun. I'll never forget embedding all the hardware under one of my floors in a crawlspace and running all the wiring around to the different machines. I do need to take a look at Computer Craft and figure that one out, but it just wont be the same.
EDIT: I actually do have pictures from the islands time in my technic world. The most fun I have ever had in Minecraft:
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Decided to try getting back into Minecraft. I think it's been 2 or 3 years since I last played. Decided to go with the Direwolf20 mod pack. I wanted a pack that isn't "all of the mods", but the FTB lite pack was missing Buildcraft, which is a no go for me. So this is a bit more involved than I was looking for, but the mod list does look pretty solid, and it includes all my old favorites, or their successors. I'm off to a pretty good start as well. I might even have found enough diamonds to get a quarry running, though I think I'm still short.
I always used to get impatient and cheat before, and I think I can suck it up now and play the game right, which should be good for holding my interest.
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I dont think it applied to this situation Randox. And the obvious reason you have to qualify behavior is because if 2 people walk in a room and one says it was consensual and the other says it wasn't a jury would have to believe it was unless physical or behavioral evidence can support otherwise due to innocent until proven guilty.
In the case of his friendship. Kalphite was dumped in a position to say his male best friend who he must trust to be friends and his female best friend who he trusts to be friends have conflicting stories. Therefore if you trust both of them you have to sort out the details to decide which story is more plausable to you.
Juries rule one way or the other, they don't qualify it either. That's not how laws work.
For sure, I can appreciate Kalphite being put in an awkward position. I can tell all of you what I think, but it doesn't really matter because I'm not him, and I'm not the one who has to figure out what they're going to do. My point isn't to make a ruling, it's to point out that things often aren't as clear to outside observer as you may think. My point is also a bit of an attempt at education, since it is entirely possible for guys in particular to put other people in situations where they are afraid to voice dissent, and that's a bad situation for everyone.
Oh, and I want to slap whoever designed the female Canadian swimsuits. We all know where the breasts are, we don't need highlight patches. Maybe you could print on a sixpack or something instead :D
EDIT: Canada has probably the most obnoxious fans I've seen, at least in Beach and Tennis. They're always showing up in Moose antlers, waving flags, and cheering loudly, and it's pretty funny. Even saw one I think two days ago some poor guy with an American flag right in the middle of the Canadian cheering squad watching us play whoever, and to his credit, he actually got pretty into it himself :thumbup:
Anyway, tonights match is womens between Canada and Switzerland, and it's pretty much dead even right now. http://olympics.cbc.ca/video/live/olympic-games-tonight-sn1-aug-women-beach-volleyball.html
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Fair enough thats her story.
Now if you ask the guy, assuming the best case scenario that it was 100% consensual and she had regrets once she was sober. What was his reason for thinking that it was okay to begin with. Assuming the best case scenario.
My guess is he always had a crush on her and was really pushing to make something happen when that party rolled around. And the by the fact that you were all friends she wasn't really into him. Even in this best case scenario isn't a good friend to either of you and it just goes downhill from there assuming he was pushing her against her will.
So assuming his guilt or not doesn't matter. I truly believe that situation wouldn't have happened if he gave a shit about his friends at at all. I lean towards not being friends with him because of that, even if it was 100% consensual.
Why are you qualifying consent?
It kind of goes to the whole heart of why sexual assault isn't reported more often that so many people try to analyze your behavior, and if you don't behave exactly as expected, people doubt you, or assume you're lying outright. Consider that people can feel tremendous social pressure not to make a fuss, that people will actively lie to themselves as a form of emotional protection, and particularly pertinent to parties, that many people respond to rejection with violence, either right away or later. The feeling of an implied threat can easily lead to a duress situation, where someone will willingly participate in activities they don't consent to out of fear that something worse will happen if they don't 'play along' to some extent. I'm not sure many guys appreciate just how terrifying rejecting a guys advances can be, especially if it has gone poorly for you in the past (a fact that is very unlikely to be shared with you). Not that it can't get way more complicated than that, and it sounds like in this case it was much more complicated. Not everyone reacts the same way, and a lot of the reactions are only going to make sense to people familiar with that head space, who have the life experiences to put themselves mentally in the same situation with full context.
I had problems with this when I started watching DS9. When I was little, I caught a few episodes and I really liked Dr. Bashir. Watching it again, he's pretty much just committing unrelenting sexual harassment against Dax whenever the two of them are in the same room.
On a happier note, watching beach volleyball in the Olympics has been amazing at night, even if Canada isn't winning. It's pretty much a full on party by midnight every time the play stops, and it's just a kind of amazing vibe for sports, and particularly fitting for the whole 'dude bro' vibe of mens beach volley ball.
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Today...
in Off-Topic
Posted
I believe that as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, the US actually does have obligations to take in refugees, and obligation that current ban prevents the US from fulfilling. I'd also point out that, when we look back in history, the countries that turn away those fleeing persecution or war rarely end up looking better for it.
On a slightly different track, since this throws yet another wrench into the process of the US granting citizenship to those people who risked their lives (and those of their family) to aid the US army as interpreters (of both language and culture) in Afghanistan and Iraq, I think it's well past time that Canada and perhaps other willing NATO members stepped in and offered these people and any family still outside the US citizenship in our own country, or at least permanent residency, to either provide a safe haven while they continue to pursue US citizenship, or as a new place to call home.
My thinking is twofold. Aside from providing some safety to people who earned it many times over, it also builds goodwill for us and other NATO members if we have need of interpreters in the future, which is almost certain that we will sooner or later, and it's going to cost us soldiers lives if people wont help us because they don't believe we will help them back.