Arete Eudaimonia

Thanks to my buddy Nick I’ve discovered the latest fact that irks the hell out of me.

Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 – as is dictated by the computer models of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues – but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.

That, ontop of the fact that this guy says polar bears are actually NOT dying. This is especially irksome to me because I just got finished having another go at watching Planet Earth on my Blu-ray player. While it is a great show to have on HD and has amazing stunning visuals the narration is mostly Richard Atkinson making off hand quips about the evil of humanity.

This is just more proof that, like the religious types, the environmentalists are attempting to pass legislation by guilt. Sorry mates, it doesn’t work on me, and it never will.

Hey futureman. I wrote this as an email to a few friends about the open beta of Champions Online. This is what I got so far:

So, I redownloaded the beta to Champions Online and began to play it first thing after installing drivers and migrating files on my computa! First off: It is better than City of Heroes.

I’m going to go all train of thought here, tell me if something doesn’t make sense. There’s no villain play (yet) only heroes. Each powerset starts with two powers, and their usage is all ‘energy’ based. Some builds use less energy, making them feel more like mana classes, some builds use it and build it fast, like rogues. The two powers are separated thusly: Power 1 builds energy. It usually does minimal damage, but its purpose is to build up some energy for you. Power 2 does dips and drains energy. So for the whole newbie zone the game mechanic you are learning is how your ‘class’ uses up energy, and how it builds it back.

Each skill has a…’type.’ In the skill description you may see more than one summary of how the skill works. One might say ‘tap. blah blah blah’ and then below that ‘charge blah blah.’ This refers to how you push the button. If you just tap the button, it does whatever the skill does instantly. If you hold down the button, it charges up and may give you a special buff, or any number of things. There also seems to be ‘click’ which I believe is the same as ‘tap’ without any charging skill option.

So, you get a set of stock powersets, and these are very generic. Full list will come next email. You can choose a custom powerset, however. Here you can mix and match powers from different powersets to start off with. Examples: There is a ‘gadgeteer’ set and a ‘munitions’ set, so I started a tiger (tee hee) lookin hero, with a gadgeteer ‘energy builder’ and a munitions ‘damage’ so, when I build energy I hold down 1 (Both these skills are ‘hold the button down’ skills) and that makes me pull out this sci fi lookin pistol thing that shoots waves out of it, and then I switch to holding down 2 and pull out two desert eagle lookin’ pistols and let loose devil-may-cry style. Alternate ad infinitum till dead enemy you have. (you get more skills than this later, I’ve only begun to play outside the noob zone)

You get travel powers immediately after leaving the noob zone (you leave after a neat instanced quest at level 5) and there are many more to choose from. Flight, Super Jump, Super Speed, self esplanatory. Acrobatics: Combination of Super Jump and Super Speed, not as good as either, but more versatile. Then you get your element ones, ala-the incredibles skating on ice, one of them tunnels in the ground, there’s a disk to hover around on like Green Goblin, and one is rocket-hover boots. Still haven’t tested any personally except acrobatics, which was a tap/charge skill. Tap being a quick getaway in combat type thing, charge being a ‘ok I want to get from a to b fast’ thing.