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[Demolition Squid]

I loved the goat attack.

I also loved him continually going on about how crazy redheaded women are... to my redheaded Inquisitor. 

[Cain]

You better watch out for Iron Bull.  He sorta abandoned the Qun for redheads.

[Faust]

And now I'm called back to my actual keep because someone is assaulting it with a goat.  Not "a goat is alongside him".  No, as in the goat is the weapon.  And now I have to judge what happens to, what is clearly, a crazy man?

I would suggest you surrender to him immediately.

[Cain]

I opted to exile him.  With all the weapons he could carry.  To the not very pleasant Tevinter Empire, who may or may not be secretly supporting my enemies.

Strangely enough, everyone approves of this course of action.

[Faust]

I opted to exile him.  With all the weapons he could carry.  To the not very pleasant Tevinter Empire, who may or may not be secretly supporting my enemies.

Strangely enough, everyone approves of this course of action.

Lest the commander send the goatse man after them as well.

[Junkenstein]

Dispatch the Antivan Crows to hunt down a copyright violator?  Sending in assassins seems a bit excessive...but OK.  Capture a keep without siege weaponry?  Sure, I mean I have Cassandra, and she is a one-woman battering ram.  Oh wait, now I have another location to administer?

And now I'm called back to my actual keep because someone is assaulting it with a goat.  Not "a goat is alongside him".  No, as in the goat is the weapon.  And now I have to judge what happens to, what is clearly, a crazy man?

What the fuck?

We've actually reached the meta point where copyright violators are hunted in-game?

And a fucking goat? What? I mean, yes, it'd be fucking terrifying if someone was running at you swinging a goat but it doesn't seem like the best possible method of attack. At all.

[Cain]

Well, Varric wrote an amusing series called "Hard in Hightown", basically a hard-boiled detective series about the guards in Kirkwall.  Someone is copying the series and putting out illegitimate copies.

You can deal with this issue via the War Operations tables, which allows you to choose which advisor's team gets the job.  There's a military branch, a diplomatic and trade branch...and a spy/covert action branch.

The choice was obvious, really.  That said, the ongoing operation is getting really strange.  The last lead was found killed in a locked room...in the exact manner of the first victim of the second Hard in Hightown novel.

[Junkenstein]

Well that answers some questions but still leaves the burning issue of "Who thought a goat is an effective weapon?"

[Demolition Squid]

It wasn't about effectiveness.

It was about style.

[Eater of Clowns]

It's a tie in for the new Goat Simulator:  Thedas DLC.

[Cain]

So I've been playing around with both in-game and recording settings, so I'd like some feedback on this.

http://youtu.be/mSLFkeaqMWo

Way things are going, I probably wont be able to record until after Xmas (next two weeks: shopping for family, finishing counter-terrorism paper, work, in that order of importance.  Also if I get this job in London, I'll be moving around the New Year).  But I suppose that gives Bioware time to release the PC patch, which will be good.  And I can continue to do a gajillion sidequests while ignoring the main story.

[LMNO]

Looks and sounds good.  There was no voiceover, right? 

[Cain]

No.  Mainly because I forgot to turn the mic on.  Every time I shut down my computer, I have to unplug and replug the mic...and then there is the recording options, the mic line itself and the computer's own audio software suit.

If any one of those steps is forgotten, then it only records in-game.

I had to play around with the settings quite a bit to get something decent.  Mesh quality needed to stay at high, to avoid hideous shiny hair, which meant everything else had to go down in quality.  And even then, I was getting bad framerate.  So eventually I adjusted the recordings to 720p and 30 FPS, which results in a fairly stable 40-60 FPS for playing purposes.  It's occasionally dipped to the mid-30s, but only when loading very large areas with numerous NPCs.  And 30 FPS for the cutscenes.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It's hard to tell with youtube (cos they rape your quality as a default) but it looks like your source file may be suffering from pretty heavy compression. Lots of artifacts in the sky and when there's a lot happening onscreen. It takes a lot longer to upload larger, less compressed files but at least if you do that, youtube will scale down, whereas obviously it won't work if you give them less than their working level.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

In this case, though, I think it's probably more of a "we don't want to transfer records because it makes it too easy for clients to go to a different dentist" thing.

It's a pretty bad move, though, because HIPAA is one of those things that it's really not a good idea to violate if most of your money comes from a contract with the state.

Fucking with HIPAA in general is a bad idea. That piece of legislation has been known to level whole cities for failure to use approved screen guards.

On the ongoing saga of Who Do My X-rays Belong To, today when I explained that they are actually breaking the law, the receptionist asked me "how does it violate HIPAA?"

And then I name-dropped my attorney.

Oregon Medical Board Rules, as well:

OREGON ADMINISTRATIVE RULES 847-012-000

Patient's Access to Medical Records

(1) Licensees of the Oregon Medical Board must make protected health information in the medical record available to the patient or the patient's representative upon their request, to inspect and obtain a copy of protected health information about the individual, except as provided by law and this rule. The patient may request all or part of the record. A summary may substitute for the actual record only if the patient agrees to the substitution. Board licensees are encouraged to use the written authorization form provided by ORS 192.566.

The only exceptions are if there is pending litigation (which changes the process, not necessarily the access), or information that would be harmful to the health of the patient if disclosed (ie psychotherapy notes).

Oh and here's another fun fact. Same rule:

( Requests for medical records must be complied with within a reasonable amount of time not to exceed 30 days from the receipt of the request.

(9) Violation of this rule will result in a $195 fine and may be cause for further disciplinary action by the Board.