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Weather patterns are driven by convection cycles. The convection cycles have a lot to do with lattitude and proximity to the tropics. When you add heat to the convection cycle, it changes shape in a fairly predictable way, just like when you turn up the gas on your stove, the burner doesn't suddenly explode, but rather the flame expands. It is in fact possible to push the cycle past a point where it does change dramatically, but dramatically here is a bit of an understatement. It's the kind of drama you are unlikely to live through.

The reason it seems like an oversimplification is that while geography does play a part, the convection cycle is a consistent process that does not vary with geography, but rather is perturbed by it.

I'm not an expert - so I may be wrong here.

Ten minutes is all it takes to understand the leading theory of aboigenisis. No ridiculous probabilities, no supernatural forces, no lightning striking a mud puddle. Just chemistry! Nitrogen and ammonia were both abundant in the "second atmosphere" (archean era) which is when the oceans and life first formed.

MacTCP predates Windows 95 by *a long time*, but in case you still don't believe me you should read about Open Transport as well, which was shipping on new PowerMacs in May 2005, in other words, before Windows 95 was shipping.

Here is the Power Mac 9500 which was out in May 1995 and featured OpenTransport, and an internal modem. http://support.apple.com/kb/SP394

You could run a PPP stack and multitask internet applications cooperatively even on System 6 which is way older than Windows 95. Cute... mind you these machines required an external modem which you usually wouldn't buy from Apple as far as I remember.

I was referring to the Protestant work ethic, which as the link notes, is sometimes just referred to as "the work ethic". Your mention of "discipline and accepting your fate" means you already have it. You've been thoroughly indoctrinated by your upbringing in a Western capitalist nation. ;) It apparently works well for a lot of people, which is why it's spread so widely - it has great survival value - but not everybody adapts to it so well.

You're also a republican, in a 19th century sense: "each man must somehow be persuaded to submerge his personal wants into the greater good of the whole" (attributed to Gordon Wood). If your personal wants are not to wake up early, but you've somehow been persuaded to do it anyway (money? belief in public virtue?), you're a good republican. That's a pretty noble thing, but I can't help feeling that it might be possible to arrange things to better take our biological differences into account. We're still living 19th century lives in many ways.

3. The United States and its citizens needs to place as much importance and admiration on the sciences, and those who persue knowledge in them, as they do on sports players, movie stars, and "socialites"

That was the case in the 1950s. Baseball players made $6,000 to $10,000 per year. And they had to unionize to get that. The movie industry had the studio system, where actors were hired as employees under a deal which allowed them to be fired but not to quit and go to another studio. That lasted until 1954, and except for a very few performers, being a movie star didn't mean being rich. Musicians were doing even worse; the big money in music was being a band leader or a record company. People who inherited money but weren't good enough to make it themselves were derided as useless wasters and taxed at very high levels.

But physicists and electronics engineers were almost worshipped. They were the people who ended WWII. Understand what a big deal this was. Without radar, the Battle of Britain probably would have been lost. British Spitfires only had enough fuel for about twenty minutes of combat, so Fighter Command had to have accurate information about where the enemy bombers were, or the fighters would be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Without the atomic bomb, defeating Japan would have been a long, bloody slog. Invading and conquering Japan was expected to be at least as big a job as invading and conquering Europe had been; harder because the distances were longer, bloodier because the landing area was totally hostile, unlike France. Then, one day, the US dropped the Bomb. And suddenly it was all over. (Read Thank God for the Atomic Bomb, by Paul Fussell. Fussell today is a famous essayist, but in 1945, he was an infantryman who'd been in combat and was part of the army getting ready for the invasion of Japan.)

That's how we got Big Science. Big Science was invented to win WWII, and it paid off. Big time. It continued to pay off during the 1950s and 1960s, with jet aircraft, computers, rockets, nuclear power, antibiotics, color TV - things that affected daily life.

We've been there. It's over in the US. Today, in China, being an engineer means a much better life than most of the people around you. That's why they're on the way up and we're on the way down.

Texas had a long tradition of crooked elections after Reconstruction. There were very few Republicans in state government until after the 1960's, so most races were decided in the Democratic primary.

Lyndon B. Johnson's first victory (by 87 votes) in the 1948 Democratic primary for US Senate was enabled by the last-minute appearance of about 200 "uncounted votes" that were overwhelmingly in his favor. Years later in the late 1970's, the head election official at the precinct admitted that the additional votes were fictional.

A decent description of the campaign, the vote, and the aftermath in the courts: http://www.eiu.edu/~historia/1999/texas99.htm. Note that Johnson's place on the November ballot (where election was assured) was secured by a US Supreme Court decision.

  You are right of course; I meant casualties, not lives. That's what I get for posting in a hurry.

  Please note that what I said about mainland invasion losses were some of the estimates I've seen. As to the Japanese being defeated, you may want to read this http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfib/courses/Fussell.pdf which echoes things I've read elsewhere as well.

  I won't deny that there are all kinds of criticisms of both sides of this argument; but not one of the veterans I've spoken to over the years who served at that end of the Pacific in the summer of '45 believe that the Japanese were ready to surrender.

  Anyway, I don't have time to argue this... let the historians battle it out :)

SB

Yeah, my school EIU has blocked all access to BitTorrent as well, kind of makes it a pain to get any new Mandrake releases.

I am guessing the reason you are addicted is simply good storytelling.

The word mythology, somewhat generically used, refers to transcendent human experiences that everyone can relate to. Such cliche stories as "All men want to be strong heroes", "women want to be rescued by handsome guy", "overcoming all odds".

Good game designers simply include as many of these experiences as possible, within the constraints of a challenge/reward system. Thus, you have an environment where you are capable of self-actualizing. Maslow's heirarchy of needs is a pyramid, where all your basic needs (food, air, sleep, safety, etc) must be fulfilled, before you can focus on your emotional and higher needs. Since you sit an play games all day, your financial needs, food, etc. are all being met. The only remaining motivator for you is to develop your highest level of emotions, need for personal interaction, and being rewarded for your actions/ideas.

Game therapy is easy. Find situations in real life that reward you in a way *similar* to the game. If you like teaming up with people and going to kill some stuff in the game, then join a softball team in real life. If you like developing your character, then start going to the gym and eating healthy. If you like finding rare items, then redesign your house and save up money for new furniture and electronics.

Everything that you like about gaming is an echo of something in real life - you just have to hunt for it a little bit.