Arcane Codex is a German fantasy role-playing game. And as I was told on a board the Arcane Codex Conpendium shows some strange ways of humour. Or what would you call a character class rapist like? As it seems the rapist gets power points for humiliating people.
Actually I’m not a moralist, but this is a little too far for my taste. The RPG doesn’t even has a disclaimer, like Little Fears has, and is actually very popular with younger gamers.
Today at the Guardian:
George Bush will be sworn in as president of the United States for a second term today in a lavish Washington ceremony, amid mounting international concern that his new administration will make the world a more dangerous place.
A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.
Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.
The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general.
Tony Blair, in an interview with the Guardian, expressed hope that Mr Bush’s second term would prove to be more consensual than the first.
He said there had been an evolution in US policy, witnessed by him in successive conversations with Mr Bush.
“Evolution comes from experience,” he said.
Mr Blair said that, as part of a learning process that began with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the US administration had reached the conclusion that “in the end, we can take security and military measures against terrorism but… the best prospect of peaceful coexistence lies in the spread of democracy and human rights”.
Asked if Mr Bush had become a multilateralist, Mr Blair said he could not speak for the president but “it is significant, in my view, that he is coming to Europe as his first foreign visit”.
Mr Bush is due in Europe at the end of next month.
The inauguration is taking place amid unprecedented security in Washington as luminaries from across the country converge on the capital.
Mr Bush spent the eve of the ceremony to mark the start of his second term shuttling between a series of events: from three candlelit dinners to thank his biggest campaign donors through to a “Celebration of Freedom” fireworks concert.
He described the elections in Afghanistan late last year and in Iraq planned for next week as “landmark events in the history of liberty”.
Mr Bush also proclaimed his inauguration as “a sign of hope for freedom-loving people everywhere”.
Aware of the damage that has been done to America’s reputation over the war in Iraq and the Kyoto protocol on global warming, the new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, whose appointment was confirmed by the Senate yesterday, promised to try to repair relations with France, Germany and other countries bruised during the first term.
But yesterday’s poll pointed to the deep suspicion of Mr Bush that exists across the world. It found that the bulk of people in 18 of the 21 countries surveyed had negative feelings towards the president.
Traditional US allies in western Europe were among those expressing the most negative feelings about the re-election.
In Britain, 64% of those polled said they disagreed with the proposition that the US would have a mainly positive impact on the world. The figures were even higher in France (75%) and Germany (77%).
Mr Bush’s victory was viewed positively in only three of the 21 countries: the Philippines, Poland and India.
One of the organisers of the poll, Steven Kull, the director of the Programme on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said: “This is quite a grim picture for the US.”
Another of the organisers, Doug Miller, president of the polling firm GlobeScan, said he had been monitoring trends since the start of 2003 and the figure for those who disagreed that the US was having a mainly positive impact on the world had risen from 46% then to 49% last year, and had now jumped to 58%.
“Our research makes very clear that the re-election of President Bush has further isolated America from the world,” he said. “It also supports the view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode America’s good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence world affairs.”
Asked how Mr Bush’s re-election had effected their feelings towards Americans, 72% of those polled in Turkey said it made them feel worse about Americans, 65% in France, 59% in Brazil and 56% in Germany.
There was also overwhelming opposition to sending troops to Iraq, even among close allies such as Britain.
“Fully one in four British citizens say the Bush re-election has made them more opposed to sending troops to Iraq, resulting in a total of 63% now opposed,” Mr Miller said.
The poll was conducted between November 15 and January 3 in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the UK. A separate poll, for the Los Angeles Times, shows Americans are also polarised over the prospect of a second term, including over the conduct of the war in Iraq.
Mr Bush’s job approval rating stands at 50%, with 47% disapproving. In recent times, only Richard Nixon at the start of his second term in 1972 recorded poll ratings as poor.
I’m really not a big fan of online auctions. Neither can you really get stuff that cheap at eBay nor am I too convinced about the mechanics of such online auctions. Is it really the intention, that the guy who bids 2 seconds before the close gets the award?
It gets really surreal, when you transfer this concept to an online strategy game, as in the case of World of Dungeons. Here virtual fantasy heroes bid in a virtual-virtual auction hall for the hottest power items. Why do I have to think about that banner that you could found on the deceased gamersjargon.com:
I found this site with quite witty and too true caricatures of newsgroup and forum users.
Give it a try. :)
While surfing the web I’ve found some interesting sites on historical Asian architecture, like castles, fortresses, bridges, mausoleums and the like.
jcastle.info is an interesting page about Japanese castles. It explains the different types and compounds and has a lot of photo material.
orientalarchitecture.com features information about at least 300 historical buildings in 18 countries of Asia.
The last days I sat down again to one of my projects - an alternative battle system for L5R. Sadly the original system is not worth the effort. It doesn’t manage to support a cineastic nor a tactical style of play.
So I started to write an alternative. My tactical battle system has a lot of interesting features, making a battle anything more than roll your battle skill for checking the table.
Here are some of the features:
The german version is already up. The english version will come soon. (May be still this week..)
Not my day. My internet connect sucks and that sucks me. Hard stuff after my ISP told me, it cannot provide me DSL. :(
This construction site on the other side of the street is getting on my nerves.
They are restorating a wrecked house, as they are still a common sight here in East Germany.
Well, as for the restoration work, they are throwing stones all day long into a container. Not as if that would be loud enough, no, because of security reasons they use a chute. Maximazing the security and the noise pollution.
Long live the technical advance!
The new format of my homepage is up. Leaving the realm of good ol’ articles and stuff, I will now write some sort of blog instead.
With this change of format there are also some changes in the content you will find here.
Most important www.sven-lotz.de will now be completely in English. Where completely means about 95% I guess. ;) Actually all the blogs will be in English, but it may be that I will put some German articles here, especially when it comes up to Role-Playing Games.
As we talk about it: The old homepage can be found here, with all the stuff in it (EMUsys, RdF etc.).
The other change is mainly about structure of content. On my old homepage I wrote a lot of general articles, but here I will write, first of all, blogs. Hope you got that point. ;)
Have fun
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