That seems to me like the beginning of an aristocracy, where if you can afford to pay, you have more rights than people who can't pay. While an interesting concept in principle, and I'm sure it would work without any major increase in accidents and provide the state with more money -- I just can't support something that's ethically wrong in my opinion.
You didn't even give reasons why 4e killed your interest
Because it isn't up to debate. If I started listing reasons why 4e killed my interest, all it would do is invite people to argue with each point, and say, "no, this was a *good* change", when none of it would make the game any less dead to me. You can't argue me into liking 4e by arguing each of the points why I dislike it. Hence, listing those points is a waste of time.
Oh, trust me -- Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series are some of my favorite CRPGs ever made, and I regularly replay them.
It just makes me a little sad that there will never again be more. There's a difference between replaying a game you know how it will turn out, and playing a wholly new game with surprises.
4th Edition killed my interest in D&D. It's a shame that I will apparently never have a new D&D computer game to play ever again, but I'm sticking with 1st-3rd Editions and Pathfinder which feels far more D&D than 4e ever will.
Forgotten Realms was one of my favorite fictional settings, but 4e killed that too, with the Spellplague and jump forward in time and everything, so again, 4e ruined not only D&D but also the Forgotten Realms.
Furthermore, Cryptic is one of my least favorite developers. They make very simplistic games that are all about combat mechanics and hack and slash, with no good story or intriguing characters anywhere in sight.
This is a strong pass. I'd *love* a good Forgotten Realms D&D game, but this provides for none of that. "good" is negated by Cryptic, "Forgotten Realms" is negated by 4e, and "D&D" is negated by 4e.
Didn't the Israeli invade Palestinian lands pretty much exactly the way the Germans invaded French lands?
No, they didn't. The Israelis took land in defensive wars fought against Arab armies.
That doesn't seem correct to me. As per Wikipedia, "On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a large-scale surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War."
So it seems the Israelis took land in an offensive war and I thus repeat my question, didn't the Israeli invade Palestinian lands pretty much exactly the same way the Germans invaded France? In both cases it was an offensive war in order to grab land that didn't belong to them. Gaza, Sinai, Golan, West Bank and all that -- they were never mandated to Israel in the founding of that nation -- they were territories they violently seized by initiating a war.
It also means that you'll be replacing your crew constantly, making everyone a novice in every flight.
Which is a non-issue if we're sending people up for other reasons than to get astronaut training. If we're sending a geologist up to study a comet, then it doesn't matter that he's a novice at astronauting.
Also, exactly why do you think we do manned flights at all? It's precisely to increase the safety to the point where you can sell tourist tickets to celebrities
That may be your reasoning, but there are other lines of reasoning too, that don't require increased safety. For example, sending people up to do construction work on comets. That doesn't require increasing safety to massively redundant levels.
At a 25% level (or pick any other number, really, that you can agree with -- the point is reduced safety from current, not the exact 25% number) if you need 10 geologists up there, you send up 40. If you need 100 construction workers to build a moonbase, send 400. With a different safety percentage the numbers will be different, but the point is we don't need to be absolutely sure that if we send n people, then n people reach the destination. That's just an added excessive cost, and we can do it for cheaper if we accept some losses.
So it's our role to be the world police? "This country isn't behaving like we want them to behave, so let's slap them around until they act according to Western morals and ethics. Let's beat them into thinking right."
If we force a culture to change, it will just be forced change, and it will revert as soon as we step out. Do we want to have to have a military presence in dozens of countries around the world, watching over them with an angry eye making sure they don't do anything different from us? And where would it stop? Where to draw the line? What kind of offenses are enough to warrant intervention? If we feel entitled to interfere in Iran because their method of execution is stoning, then do we have the right to invade Netherlands because they allow pot smoking? Different countries do have different laws and morals than our own countries, and if we step on the road of trying to "correct" every country out there to think exactly like us, it'll be a road leading to a World War. Do several European countries have the right to invade Texas because Texas has a barbaric death penalty? To "correct" Texas to be "right-thinking"? Does Sweden, with its different privacy laws, have the right to invade the United States to fix the US so that privacy is better protected? Each society has to evolve on its own, at its own pace, and in its own direction.
Can you elaborate on that supposed difference between WWII partisan groups and the Palestinian partisan groups? I'd love to hear what that important distinction separating the two is.
Err, citation needed. As far as I'm aware, Ahmadinejad has very consistently claimed that they are only pursuing civilian nuclear energy, not military nuclear bombs to attack other countries.
If you've got some proof that Iran is saying it's planning to attack other countries with nuclear bombs, I'd sure like to hear it. Otherwise, I call your bullshit.
One of the reasons manned flights are so damn expensive is because there's redundancy after redundancy to try to do absolutely everything to ensure 99.99999% crew survival rate. By letting crew survival rate go down to, say, 25%, things could get a lot cheaper.
Now, some people are going to say, it's inhuman of society to gamble with the lives of its citizens, but I ask, isn't it ultimately the choice of every *individual* whether or not they want to gamble with their lives? Shouldn't an individual have the right to risk their life if they choose to? Tons of people bungee jump, hang glide, ride motorcycles, parachute, rock climb and so on, taking risks with their lives and society doesn't stop them. I know there would be people who would also choose to risk their lives for the advancement of our spaceflight. Why not take on those people who are willing to volunteer their lives, build some risky rockets, and go to space a lot cheaper.
Copyright works in principle. What doesn't work is its long period which has been extended to a ridiculous degree over the 20th century by lobbying corporations who paid off lawmakers. Copyright has become something now that benefits only corporations, and for practical purposes never ends for any product, so that it could come to benefit the public domain.
You're the one who goose-steps to the law no matter what it says and thinks that standing up to unjust laws is wrong. You'd have been right at home in the Third Reich.
Especially when the only reason you don't like the right is because you are greedy, selfish, and feel you are entitled to whatever you want because mommy and daddy spoiled you.
That's funny. You don't seem to know the first thing about me, and are just making (wildly incorrect) assumptions.
Greedy? I don't get *anything*, not a damn thing, out of repealing the law, that I don't already have. So if there's no gain, how can the motivation be greed?
Selfish? It's far from selfish if you are fighting for the benefit of mankind. Freeing artworks older than 30+ years *will* benefit mankind, just as freeing patents older than 30+ years will benefit mankind. I'm taking abuse from people like you, because I fight for the good of others. That's pretty much the *opposite* of selfishness.
Entitled because I'm spoiled? My father never bought me a damn thing, not a comic book, not a movie, not a computer, not a damn thing ever. From age 16 onwards I lived alone and had to work for every single thing I've ever bought since. Spoiled? I think you're insane or stupid.
Fighting back would be pressuring your representatives and senators.
What makes you think I'm not doing that also?
Oh right, your wildly incorrect assumptions again.
Oh and by the way, I am a published writer. Wouldn't selfishness in that case be about wanting infinite copyrights?
Remember, the US government cancelled the Constellation program and post-Shuttle manned spaceflight capabilities, with the hopes that they'd *buy seats* on Russian spacecraft.
And now they can't even agree on buying some plutonium from Russians?
How many people really think that buying those seats on Russian shuttles will happen without any problems?
Face it, America gave away its manned spaceflight. Making deals with Russia can't be relied on -- even small things like plutonium can't be reliably obtained, let alone manned spaceflight through Russians.
We gave it away. And now our manned spaceflight is screwed.
It seems to me most of the of the people who complain about the "science gap" are those who aren't actually working in the field...
Isn't that how it should be? Why would the haves complain? It's always the have-nots who have to complain about any inequality, not the people who are sitting in their Porsches and expensive mansions.
The topic is people aren't finding enough science jobs. OMG, there are some people out there *with* science jobs who aren't complaining! I never would have thought!:D
That's a "let them eat cake" reply if I ever saw one.:D
Can you elaborate on how the heat generated by the large asteroid (at ground level on impact) somehow ends up radiating off into space, yet the same heat generated higher up in the sky when the bits burn up in re-entry (closer to space) somehow doesn't end up radiating off into space?
As I see it, breaking up an asteroid allows us to convert the kinetic energy to heat higher up in the sky (and closer to space) than a ground level impact would be.
Slashdot Mirror
That seems to me like the beginning of an aristocracy, where if you can afford to pay, you have more rights than people who can't pay. While an interesting concept in principle, and I'm sure it would work without any major increase in accidents and provide the state with more money -- I just can't support something that's ethically wrong in my opinion.
You didn't even give reasons why 4e killed your interest
Because it isn't up to debate. If I started listing reasons why 4e killed my interest, all it would do is invite people to argue with each point, and say, "no, this was a *good* change", when none of it would make the game any less dead to me. You can't argue me into liking 4e by arguing each of the points why I dislike it. Hence, listing those points is a waste of time.
Oh, trust me -- Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series are some of my favorite CRPGs ever made, and I regularly replay them.
It just makes me a little sad that there will never again be more. There's a difference between replaying a game you know how it will turn out, and playing a wholly new game with surprises.
4th Edition killed my interest in D&D. It's a shame that I will apparently never have a new D&D computer game to play ever again, but I'm sticking with 1st-3rd Editions and Pathfinder which feels far more D&D than 4e ever will.
Forgotten Realms was one of my favorite fictional settings, but 4e killed that too, with the Spellplague and jump forward in time and everything, so again, 4e ruined not only D&D but also the Forgotten Realms.
Furthermore, Cryptic is one of my least favorite developers. They make very simplistic games that are all about combat mechanics and hack and slash, with no good story or intriguing characters anywhere in sight.
This is a strong pass. I'd *love* a good Forgotten Realms D&D game, but this provides for none of that. "good" is negated by Cryptic, "Forgotten Realms" is negated by 4e, and "D&D" is negated by 4e.
Didn't the Israeli invade Palestinian lands pretty much exactly the way the Germans invaded French lands?
No, they didn't. The Israelis took land in defensive wars fought against Arab armies.
That doesn't seem correct to me. As per Wikipedia, "On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a large-scale surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War."
So it seems the Israelis took land in an offensive war and I thus repeat my question, didn't the Israeli invade Palestinian lands pretty much exactly the same way the Germans invaded France? In both cases it was an offensive war in order to grab land that didn't belong to them. Gaza, Sinai, Golan, West Bank and all that -- they were never mandated to Israel in the founding of that nation -- they were territories they violently seized by initiating a war.
Seems a lot like the beginning of WWII to me.
And since Joe Average is always stupid, in every country, then that statement reduces to:
"If you're in a democratic country, you're going to have to pay for voter stupidity."
It also means that you'll be replacing your crew constantly, making everyone a novice in every flight.
Which is a non-issue if we're sending people up for other reasons than to get astronaut training. If we're sending a geologist up to study a comet, then it doesn't matter that he's a novice at astronauting.
Also, exactly why do you think we do manned flights at all? It's precisely to increase the safety to the point where you can sell tourist tickets to celebrities
That may be your reasoning, but there are other lines of reasoning too, that don't require increased safety. For example, sending people up to do construction work on comets. That doesn't require increasing safety to massively redundant levels.
At a 25% level (or pick any other number, really, that you can agree with -- the point is reduced safety from current, not the exact 25% number) if you need 10 geologists up there, you send up 40. If you need 100 construction workers to build a moonbase, send 400. With a different safety percentage the numbers will be different, but the point is we don't need to be absolutely sure that if we send n people, then n people reach the destination. That's just an added excessive cost, and we can do it for cheaper if we accept some losses.
I'm not sure I understand. Didn't the Israeli invade Palestinian lands pretty much exactly the way the Germans invaded French lands?
So I don't see the difference you suggest.
So it's our role to be the world police? "This country isn't behaving like we want them to behave, so let's slap them around until they act according to Western morals and ethics. Let's beat them into thinking right."
If we force a culture to change, it will just be forced change, and it will revert as soon as we step out. Do we want to have to have a military presence in dozens of countries around the world, watching over them with an angry eye making sure they don't do anything different from us? And where would it stop? Where to draw the line? What kind of offenses are enough to warrant intervention? If we feel entitled to interfere in Iran because their method of execution is stoning, then do we have the right to invade Netherlands because they allow pot smoking? Different countries do have different laws and morals than our own countries, and if we step on the road of trying to "correct" every country out there to think exactly like us, it'll be a road leading to a World War. Do several European countries have the right to invade Texas because Texas has a barbaric death penalty? To "correct" Texas to be "right-thinking"? Does Sweden, with its different privacy laws, have the right to invade the United States to fix the US so that privacy is better protected? Each society has to evolve on its own, at its own pace, and in its own direction.
Can you elaborate on that supposed difference between WWII partisan groups and the Palestinian partisan groups? I'd love to hear what that important distinction separating the two is.
Doesn't the Israeli military play that exact role?
Err, citation needed. As far as I'm aware, Ahmadinejad has very consistently claimed that they are only pursuing civilian nuclear energy, not military nuclear bombs to attack other countries.
If you've got some proof that Iran is saying it's planning to attack other countries with nuclear bombs, I'd sure like to hear it. Otherwise, I call your bullshit.
Why not go back to expendable men though?
One of the reasons manned flights are so damn expensive is because there's redundancy after redundancy to try to do absolutely everything to ensure 99.99999% crew survival rate. By letting crew survival rate go down to, say, 25%, things could get a lot cheaper.
Now, some people are going to say, it's inhuman of society to gamble with the lives of its citizens, but I ask, isn't it ultimately the choice of every *individual* whether or not they want to gamble with their lives? Shouldn't an individual have the right to risk their life if they choose to? Tons of people bungee jump, hang glide, ride motorcycles, parachute, rock climb and so on, taking risks with their lives and society doesn't stop them. I know there would be people who would also choose to risk their lives for the advancement of our spaceflight. Why not take on those people who are willing to volunteer their lives, build some risky rockets, and go to space a lot cheaper.
The Senators' rocket design dictates a payload of 75mT to orbit
Millitons? As in 75 kilograms?
I don't. I believe they should be protected.
Copyright works in principle. What doesn't work is its long period which has been extended to a ridiculous degree over the 20th century by lobbying corporations who paid off lawmakers. Copyright has become something now that benefits only corporations, and for practical purposes never ends for any product, so that it could come to benefit the public domain.
You're the one who goose-steps to the law no matter what it says and thinks that standing up to unjust laws is wrong. You'd have been right at home in the Third Reich.
And wrong again. I feel sorry for how judgmental you are. I hope you get better.
You don't get anything, except the right to take the work of others with impunity.
I already have that, thus I have nothing to gain, ergo it is not greed.
You can try to hide behind "the benefit of mankind" but it is blatantly obvious you only really care about getting something for nothing.
Wrong, I care about the betterment of mankind. I guess you're the kind of guy who thinks laws are never wrong and never should be amended.
Yes, you feel entitled. The tone of your posts show it.
No they don't. You're just imagining it.
You aren't doing shit because if you were, you wouldn't be whining on slashdot.
Wrong again. I'm sorry you have to be wrong so often, maybe you should just shut your mouth to avoid embarrassing yourself so much.
Fanfic doesn't make you a published anything, Samy. Neither does vanity press.
Those are not my only credentials.
Especially when the only reason you don't like the right is because you are greedy, selfish, and feel you are entitled to whatever you want because mommy and daddy spoiled you.
That's funny. You don't seem to know the first thing about me, and are just making (wildly incorrect) assumptions.
Greedy? I don't get *anything*, not a damn thing, out of repealing the law, that I don't already have. So if there's no gain, how can the motivation be greed?
Selfish? It's far from selfish if you are fighting for the benefit of mankind. Freeing artworks older than 30+ years *will* benefit mankind, just as freeing patents older than 30+ years will benefit mankind. I'm taking abuse from people like you, because I fight for the good of others. That's pretty much the *opposite* of selfishness.
Entitled because I'm spoiled? My father never bought me a damn thing, not a comic book, not a movie, not a computer, not a damn thing ever. From age 16 onwards I lived alone and had to work for every single thing I've ever bought since. Spoiled? I think you're insane or stupid.
Fighting back would be pressuring your representatives and senators.
What makes you think I'm not doing that also?
Oh right, your wildly incorrect assumptions again.
Oh and by the way, I am a published writer. Wouldn't selfishness in that case be about wanting infinite copyrights?
Copyright is still a legally granted right. It does not matter if you don't like it. It doesn't matter if you think it is unfair.
It matters a lot. The same way tea taxes mattered in late 18th century Boston.
A law is not necessarily just. And an unjust law will not be repealed if people do not fight back.
Remember, the US government cancelled the Constellation program and post-Shuttle manned spaceflight capabilities, with the hopes that they'd *buy seats* on Russian spacecraft.
And now they can't even agree on buying some plutonium from Russians?
How many people really think that buying those seats on Russian shuttles will happen without any problems?
Face it, America gave away its manned spaceflight. Making deals with Russia can't be relied on -- even small things like plutonium can't be reliably obtained, let alone manned spaceflight through Russians.
We gave it away. And now our manned spaceflight is screwed.
Note to the ladies out there: penises are an exception to this rule.
That makes one of you.
Me, I'd prefer my penis *not* blown up, but to each their own.
"Early termination" fee?
Lol.
It seems to me most of the of the people who complain about the "science gap" are those who aren't actually working in the field...
Isn't that how it should be? Why would the haves complain? It's always the have-nots who have to complain about any inequality, not the people who are sitting in their Porsches and expensive mansions.
The topic is people aren't finding enough science jobs. OMG, there are some people out there *with* science jobs who aren't complaining! I never would have thought! :D
That's a "let them eat cake" reply if I ever saw one. :D
I'm a little skeptical of this claim.
Can you elaborate on how the heat generated by the large asteroid (at ground level on impact) somehow ends up radiating off into space, yet the same heat generated higher up in the sky when the bits burn up in re-entry (closer to space) somehow doesn't end up radiating off into space?
As I see it, breaking up an asteroid allows us to convert the kinetic energy to heat higher up in the sky (and closer to space) than a ground level impact would be.
Do you have some links I could read up on?