Hasta La Gadget!

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Less than four months after being elected, Pope Francis published his first encyclical on Friday (July 5).

But the 82-page “Lumen Fidei,” (“The Light of Faith”) is only partially Francis’ work. As Francis himself told a group of cardinals and bishops in May, the encyclical was written “with four hands” together with retired Pope Benedict XVI.

Benedict had almost finished the text when he resigned on Feb. 28. Francis took up the unfinished work, adding a “few contributions” to Benedict’s “fine work” and publishing it under his own name.

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The dreams of American parents for their sons and daughters are deep and vast, but they do not include a Beltway career, according to a poll from Gallup. Contacted between June 20 and June 24, the respondents, by a 64 percent to 31 percent margin, said, “Oh, hell, no!” when asked if they wanted their babies to grow up to be politicos:

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Though the two are slightly different elements of in-game play, Blizzard has suggested a real-money transaction addition in World of Warcraft despite their less-than-stellar performance with real-money-trading in their other large-scale online game Diablo 3. This new system is said by one single developer on Blizzard’s team – alone in a forum, believe or not – to be part of an exploration of possibilities at the moment, and not quite solid as such.

Though the full system may never make it to the public iteration of the game, testing said system requires that some current in-game elements be tagged with mention of abilities. In this case it was a discovery by an intrepid player and seeker of behind-the-scenes answers that discovered it. Combined with a forum mention of a 100% XP boost in a spell appearing on the game’s public test server, here resulting in the following response from Blizzard:

“We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game. As part of this process, elements related to this will be appearing on the PTR. We’ll provide additional updates on our plans as development progresses.” – Community Manager Zarhym for Blizzard

At the moment there’s been just one similar system in place for the World of Warcraft experience, that being the “World of Warcraft shop” which allows purchase of oddities galore, but outside the game itself. The difference here with an in-game system is the ability to hit the “buy” button without leaving gameplay.

Meanwhile Diablo 3 has a system in place where real-money transactions can take place between players – and they’ve had their fair share of regrets. Though the systems would seem a bit different on the surface, both would have cash moving in through Blizzard first and foremost – so it’s instantly clear why the company would want to roll this all through major tests before any final unveil.

VIA MMO Champion

Blizzard testing WoW in-game purchases despite ongoing D3 debacle is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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For me, I deeply admire John Paul II, but John XXIII is a great hero. For some friends of mine, that statement would be reversed. But all, I hope can rejoice today.
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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Americans have come out of the closet and in many places been allowed to live normal lives. It’s a tribute to the leadership of the LGBT movement that so much has been accomplished in such a (relatively) short amount of time.
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