We are either going to convert to nuclear power as our primary energy source in the next 50-100 years, or we're doomed. Conservation will not save us; it might add a small number of years to our survival.
While certain conservation measures make sense (because often conservation simply means more efficiency), I think our best way through the future is to put our head down and power through the whole climate change issue. High tech, big engineering, lots of nuclear, that's how to save the future. Especially once we get into space for real.
Hell, let's turn some asteroids into shadow squares.
People who disagree with global warming consensus aren't credible scientists, because they disagree with the global warming consensus.
It's a very satisfying and elegant principle; it allows scientists to be absolutely confident that they are correct, dismissing all need for niggling doubt.
I once heard an ad on the radio that talked about how important feet were, and at the end it recommended that everybody should get a routine foot checkup once a year.
It was brought to us, if I remember correctly, by the American Podiatric Society.
Now, they probably had the best of intentions. Most podiatrists probably really think people should get routine foot checkups. It takes somebody who is not a podiatrist to realize that is really stupid.
Climate scientists aren't frauds (with rare exceptions). But every single one of them thinks that climate science is URGENT. IMPORTANT. In the same way that you can't trust lawyers to be the only ones in charge of the legal system, you can't leave our climate policy solely in the hands of climatologists. They are the experts, of course, but the presence of some rational outside observers is important.
It may be a good time to point out that the Earth has often been much warmer, with much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and those are generally correlated to times of bountiful organic life. If you check out when extinctions occur, they tend to happen with global cooling.
I'm fairly sure global warming is happening, think it's possibly but not certainly due to man, and I don't really see any reason to get particularly panicked about it.
Besides, we either need to switch primarily over to nuclear power in the next hundred years, or pretty much give up on the human race, and that's the case regardless of whatever climate change is occurring.
There may be hard and fast evidence of lakes drying up and deserts expanding. The evidence that it is due to human activities is a little less direct, and a little less certain. Certainly possible, but not indisputable.
In fairness, about 50% of the posts have nothing to do with the summary. It's pretty amazing, actually, that so many people jumped into writing a post after reading nothing but the thread title.I think it indicates people really want to talk about what what ruins a game, and
niggardly/ngrdli/ -adjective
1. reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly.
2. meanly or ungenerously small or scanty: a niggardly tip to a waiter.
I think the 2nd usage is somewhat close to my intent, but not exactly. 'Niggling' works better. Your complaint about it sounding like a racial slur is pretty much irrelevant to me, though. It would only seem racist to somebody viewing it through a pre-existing racist filter.
It's a terribly narrow-minded viewpoint to assume much in either direction. For instance, in all the discussions we have had lately over the digital TV switchover, several people always complain about the old folk who aren't prepared for the conversion.
Now, that's not really true, and it has been pointed out in those threads before. Surveys have been done, and "Seasoned Citizens" are as prepared for the conversion as the general populace. The segments that are unprepared are the poor, minority, and immigrant... those without cable, without a computer, sometimes with poor literacy. Not the senior citizens.
But the assumptions and blame keep on being pitched.
But the only reason HP even attempted to go in and fix all the niggardly little details was because FOSS programmers built a whole operating system for them to use. This seems like everything is working just the way it's supposed to, to everybody's benefit. Linux is getting improvements from both ends.
Agreed that Linux is at least as good or better on a netbook for browsing, checking email, and other simple net tasks. However, I think the (vast) majority of people have a more specialized application they wish to run, and in the (vast) majority of cases, it's a Windows app. That is as likely to be true for an informed consumer as an uninformed consumer.
It's not a case of a buyer getting scared of a 'different' operating system. It's a case of a buyer wanting a netbook that will run every program he might ever want over the next few years, without the operating system getting in the way. It doesn't and wouldn't matter that Linux was significantly faster and more capable.
The idea that all sets of ethics or personal philosophies are of equal value is terribly harmful. Believing that all cultures and belief systems are of equal value negates any concept of cultural progress and ethical truth.
Exactly, but that's not what the fundies are saying. They're complaining that other groups are being acknowledged, and in doing so that they're being diminished in some absurd fashion.
Is that what they're saying, or is that how you're interpreting what they're saying?
I like Flash for lots of things; the problem isn't the language or the concept, the problem is in how it ended up being integrated into webpages. The whole idea that it should be auto-loaded and auto-executed was flawed. It shouldn't be handled like a photo, which can be automatically and passively displayed; it should have always been executable at the discretion of the viewer. That's what Flashblock does, and it makes browsing so much nicer.
There'd be nothing wrong with that, as long as they didn't do it in some manner by installing malware, breaking my machine, or other evil techniques. I'll watch the ads in a HULU.com show, because they're short and difficult to skip. If there were too many ads, I would look for a way to skip them, or just not use HULU anymore.
Ideally, advertising should be done with a little bit of mutual respect. That's why google text ads worked so well, and why everybody hates popups and other ads that don't respect the viewer.
You know, no matter how faceless the corporation, every scientist, researcher, and project manager is a real human being. Is there anybody you know in real life who would sit on a cure for AIDs?
I support the free-market system and capitalism to the degree that I'd probably get spit on in Berkley, but even I think the 'Rich' (generalizing broadly) occasionally need a kick in the butt to shake them out of social insularity they occasionally find themselves in. Look at the discussions about digital television, here on Slashdot... a lot of people ask, seriously, "Who doesn't have cable?"
The rich deserve what they've earned, but sometimes when rules get set, the poor are simply overlooked. Not from malice, but just because the people running the game don't understand the situation.
There's constantly streets being repaved and repaired in the city I live in. In the 'nice' side of town, a street will get resurfaced if develops any cracks, minor wear, etc. In the 'poor' side of town, a street will get resurfaced once it dissolves into a mess of potholes and asphalt fragments. Why the discrepancy? I think it's probably because everyone high-up in city government lives in the 'nice' part of town. Well-off people deserve to live where-ever they can afford, so that's fine; but a city service shouldn't vary depending on how expensive the houses in the neighborhood are.
I've also noted here how a nearby town has municipal broadband, which was losing money, so they levied an additional tax on everybody's power bill. I'm against wealth redistribution... especially that, which redistributes money from the poor to the well-off! And that decision wasn't passed by greedy rich people; it was made by clueless but well-meaning rich people.
I totally agree. Since, regardless of the power of the console, you're going to use it all (more or less efficiently) on the single player game, splitscreen multiplayer will always be too taxing. Stuff will have to get cut. If pretty/shiny is the primary focus of the game (and that is the primary focus of most FPS), the developer might not want to allow the option.
Same thing applies for the argument about better consoles allowing better AI. I think that's a crock, since once the AI is brought to merely adequate, all further resources will be devoted to making wood splinter from bullets more realistically. Nearly every PS3 or 360 game could be ported to the PS2 or XBox or Gamecube with nothing changed but graphical downgrades... gameplay could be left unchanged.
It's not that spendy to get into WiiWare development; I think it's only a few thousand. You do need to get Nintendo's buyoff, however. Microsoft has something similar with it's XNA development, that might even be free, but I don't know much about it.
If you're willing, you could whip something out in Flash, and make a browser game for a Wii. Flash recognizes all four Wii controllers. That's easy, but it's harder to make money from.
Slashdot Mirror
We are either going to convert to nuclear power as our primary energy source in the next 50-100 years, or we're doomed. Conservation will not save us; it might add a small number of years to our survival.
While certain conservation measures make sense (because often conservation simply means more efficiency), I think our best way through the future is to put our head down and power through the whole climate change issue. High tech, big engineering, lots of nuclear, that's how to save the future. Especially once we get into space for real.
Hell, let's turn some asteroids into shadow squares.
People who disagree with global warming consensus aren't credible scientists, because they disagree with the global warming consensus.
It's a very satisfying and elegant principle; it allows scientists to be absolutely confident that they are correct, dismissing all need for niggling doubt.
I once heard an ad on the radio that talked about how important feet were, and at the end it recommended that everybody should get a routine foot checkup once a year.
It was brought to us, if I remember correctly, by the American Podiatric Society.
Now, they probably had the best of intentions. Most podiatrists probably really think people should get routine foot checkups. It takes somebody who is not a podiatrist to realize that is really stupid.
Climate scientists aren't frauds (with rare exceptions). But every single one of them thinks that climate science is URGENT. IMPORTANT. In the same way that you can't trust lawyers to be the only ones in charge of the legal system, you can't leave our climate policy solely in the hands of climatologists. They are the experts, of course, but the presence of some rational outside observers is important.
And because he speaks blasphemy, you can reject his heretical views without having to actually consider any of the points raised?
That turns whatever scientific beliefs you once had into a nice, insulated, unfalsifiable system of faith.
It may be a good time to point out that the Earth has often been much warmer, with much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and those are generally correlated to times of bountiful organic life. If you check out when extinctions occur, they tend to happen with global cooling.
I'm fairly sure global warming is happening, think it's possibly but not certainly due to man, and I don't really see any reason to get particularly panicked about it.
Besides, we either need to switch primarily over to nuclear power in the next hundred years, or pretty much give up on the human race, and that's the case regardless of whatever climate change is occurring.
There may be hard and fast evidence of lakes drying up and deserts expanding. The evidence that it is due to human activities is a little less direct, and a little less certain. Certainly possible, but not indisputable.
In fairness, about 50% of the posts have nothing to do with the summary. It's pretty amazing, actually, that so many people jumped into writing a post after reading nothing but the thread title.I think it indicates people really want to talk about what what ruins a game, and
You Pedagogue!
:)
Hmm.
/ngrdli/ -adjective
niggardly
1. reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly.
2. meanly or ungenerously small or scanty: a niggardly tip to a waiter.
I think the 2nd usage is somewhat close to my intent, but not exactly. 'Niggling' works better. Your complaint about it sounding like a racial slur is pretty much irrelevant to me, though. It would only seem racist to somebody viewing it through a pre-existing racist filter.
It's a terribly narrow-minded viewpoint to assume much in either direction. For instance, in all the discussions we have had lately over the digital TV switchover, several people always complain about the old folk who aren't prepared for the conversion.
Now, that's not really true, and it has been pointed out in those threads before. Surveys have been done, and "Seasoned Citizens" are as prepared for the conversion as the general populace. The segments that are unprepared are the poor, minority, and immigrant... those without cable, without a computer, sometimes with poor literacy. Not the senior citizens.
But the assumptions and blame keep on being pitched.
But the only reason HP even attempted to go in and fix all the niggardly little details was because FOSS programmers built a whole operating system for them to use. This seems like everything is working just the way it's supposed to, to everybody's benefit. Linux is getting improvements from both ends.
You get the upgrader with Sketchup for Windows, too. I deleted Sketchup and had to do some registry monkeying to get rid of the updater.
This really does confuse me. Google should be smarter than this.
Oh, most of us could care less if you kill yourself driving like a moron. We just don't want you to kill innocent pedestrians or good drivers.
Agreed that Linux is at least as good or better on a netbook for browsing, checking email, and other simple net tasks. However, I think the (vast) majority of people have a more specialized application they wish to run, and in the (vast) majority of cases, it's a Windows app. That is as likely to be true for an informed consumer as an uninformed consumer.
It's not a case of a buyer getting scared of a 'different' operating system. It's a case of a buyer wanting a netbook that will run every program he might ever want over the next few years, without the operating system getting in the way. It doesn't and wouldn't matter that Linux was significantly faster and more capable.
Good for you. That's a decent set of beliefs.
The idea that all sets of ethics or personal philosophies are of equal value is terribly harmful. Believing that all cultures and belief systems are of equal value negates any concept of cultural progress and ethical truth.
Exactly, but that's not what the fundies are saying. They're complaining that other groups are being acknowledged, and in doing so that they're being diminished in some absurd fashion.
Is that what they're saying, or is that how you're interpreting what they're saying?
Flashblock is great.
I like Flash for lots of things; the problem isn't the language or the concept, the problem is in how it ended up being integrated into webpages. The whole idea that it should be auto-loaded and auto-executed was flawed. It shouldn't be handled like a photo, which can be automatically and passively displayed; it should have always been executable at the discretion of the viewer. That's what Flashblock does, and it makes browsing so much nicer.
There'd be nothing wrong with that, as long as they didn't do it in some manner by installing malware, breaking my machine, or other evil techniques. I'll watch the ads in a HULU.com show, because they're short and difficult to skip. If there were too many ads, I would look for a way to skip them, or just not use HULU anymore.
Ideally, advertising should be done with a little bit of mutual respect. That's why google text ads worked so well, and why everybody hates popups and other ads that don't respect the viewer.
Are religions and faith that don't fall into the 'sons of Abraham' category fair game for forced conversion?
You know, no matter how faceless the corporation, every scientist, researcher, and project manager is a real human being. Is there anybody you know in real life who would sit on a cure for AIDs?
I would gladly stomp a thousand baby birds to death to save a human life, and I would be thoroughly morally justified in doing so.
I support the free-market system and capitalism to the degree that I'd probably get spit on in Berkley, but even I think the 'Rich' (generalizing broadly) occasionally need a kick in the butt to shake them out of social insularity they occasionally find themselves in. Look at the discussions about digital television, here on Slashdot... a lot of people ask, seriously, "Who doesn't have cable?"
The rich deserve what they've earned, but sometimes when rules get set, the poor are simply overlooked. Not from malice, but just because the people running the game don't understand the situation.
There's constantly streets being repaved and repaired in the city I live in. In the 'nice' side of town, a street will get resurfaced if develops any cracks, minor wear, etc. In the 'poor' side of town, a street will get resurfaced once it dissolves into a mess of potholes and asphalt fragments. Why the discrepancy? I think it's probably because everyone high-up in city government lives in the 'nice' part of town. Well-off people deserve to live where-ever they can afford, so that's fine; but a city service shouldn't vary depending on how expensive the houses in the neighborhood are.
I've also noted here how a nearby town has municipal broadband, which was losing money, so they levied an additional tax on everybody's power bill. I'm against wealth redistribution... especially that, which redistributes money from the poor to the well-off! And that decision wasn't passed by greedy rich people; it was made by clueless but well-meaning rich people.
I totally agree. Since, regardless of the power of the console, you're going to use it all (more or less efficiently) on the single player game, splitscreen multiplayer will always be too taxing. Stuff will have to get cut. If pretty/shiny is the primary focus of the game (and that is the primary focus of most FPS), the developer might not want to allow the option.
Same thing applies for the argument about better consoles allowing better AI. I think that's a crock, since once the AI is brought to merely adequate, all further resources will be devoted to making wood splinter from bullets more realistically. Nearly every PS3 or 360 game could be ported to the PS2 or XBox or Gamecube with nothing changed but graphical downgrades... gameplay could be left unchanged.
Good advice, bro, except for the part about N64 level games.
It's not that spendy to get into WiiWare development; I think it's only a few thousand. You do need to get Nintendo's buyoff, however. Microsoft has something similar with it's XNA development, that might even be free, but I don't know much about it.
If you're willing, you could whip something out in Flash, and make a browser game for a Wii. Flash recognizes all four Wii controllers. That's easy, but it's harder to make money from.