Why not? We fill our jury pools with random conscripts, so why not the Oval Office, as well? While we're at it, let's do the same for Congress.
In a way I like this idea, but it doesn't work too well. The random conscripts that form the Jury are tossed out by the defendant's attorney and the prosecution and sometimes the Judge.
So what we need is to weed out Jury members that are too radical for their peers....
so lets have a large number of random conscripts similar to Juries and lets vote on them like normal!
I can picture it now...your 'resume' being sent to millions of Americans and they decide if you would make a good representative.
Getting out of your duty though would be humorous...can you imagine all the CEOs trying not to serve as President because they could make more money in the private sector?
Increased benefits and paychecks... That's enough motivation for me.
If I document the stuff I hate doing I can eventually have someone under me do it instead.
I think you missed my phrase...'if you are happy where you are'
If you need the increased benefits and paychecks, then yes go for it.
I like the people I am working with and I have all the benefits I want. An increase in salary would be nice, but as long as I am meeting my needs and able to save then I don't have any need for more.
If you are not happy, then continue to strive for it. For others, happiness comes from being happy with what you have.
Keeping certificates is not enough. I worked for a company that got audited once. It was a small business, but run by a pair of lawyers who were sticklers for details. They shredded old paperwork after some number of years, and they got nailed because they had the certificates that came with NT 4.0, but not the receipts.
Keep modding parent because he is telling the truth. I was talking to a IP lawyer about what I needed to do to make sure scanning in my D&D books was legal. He was a software IP attorney so he gave me a software example. He said who could have everything, the manuals, the disks, & the certificates, but without the receipt you would be doomed. The reason is all those original materials could be counterfeits. Without the receipt you can't prove you bought the goods.
So back to my D&D scanning...basically I now include a scan of my receipt when I scan a book and attach it to the pdf.
think if he were just left on his own mashing buttons, he'd get little out of it
The key is adult interaction. I enjoy teaching my 4 year old how to move around in video games. He does pretty good with webkidz games (the simple ones like Antz or polar plunge.)
It is just fun watching his mind work out that pressing X will move the pretty icon X direction and running into No-No guys is bad. I think it teaches him hand-eye coordination and makes him feel smart when he is using the same tools daddy is using.
My 7 year old plays all the games fairly well...but she doesn't have any patience if she fails. We are working on that. Co-op games (for kids) are good because they let an adult help in the game and they can see what to do...
I much prefer a government that taxes the wealthy and gives to the poor. Sure the poor won't hold on to the money, but it does promote churn in businesses. There is a larger middle class.
When governments give tax breaks, the rich hold on to more money and very little changes. It is hard to break into the rich club because the rich have the money. There is a small or possibly no middle class.
I hope this next election changes the way the country's economy goes...regardless of who gets into power. We've spent too much on others and need to help out at home.
Frak chips. What we need is Branding or company tattooing....so not only will the state save money, they'll make some money back. I can just imagine the McD's golden arches on someone's right cheek.
Seriously, I can't help seeing all these stupid ideas as the effects of gobalization. The more we are connected and influenced by others around the world, the more a single bad idea will spread.
On the whole the new world order isn't bad...for the majority. It just sucks not to be in power...or be powerless...criminals are the easy targets. Protecting children is another easy target.
The next thing is to make sure there are more criminals....make drugs illegal, make certain sex acts illegal, make intellectual thought a terrorist activity....poof...a ready made market to exploit...to enslave.
Thanks for the Canadian correction, Lord Zardoz;) . May Morrus' grandmother live a long time.
I think I'm going to take a tip from Shemeska and Shade and avoid the 4e forum. There is too much fighting going on there and no way to weed through it besides the moderators. It makes it difficult to find the 'gem' posts that I would like to read/save/reference.
Any plans for Gleemax to have threading/scoring similar to Slashdot? I really would like to find the 'gem' posts in the message boards without having to wade through 10 pages of posts.
I haven't been banned from enworld ever...but I hate how Politically Correct Enworld has become since 4e was announced.
There are times I really love Slashdot. For all it's faults on moderating comments, slashdot code is the most fair that I've seen.
Enworld has a policy of discussing only things that "Morrus' grandmother" would want to hear. In other words if his grandmother (who is now dead) was nearby, you would watch your tongue. It does keep things civil on the site for the most part unlike the old WotC message boards and the Gleemax today.
However in the end it is a Communist message board. It is an oligarchy....a politically correct police state. Anyone can run to a moderator and bring down 'justice.' Justice being either a ban from the board and/or removal of comments. The comments on the site in theory are all treated the same because everyone is equal....except the moderators.
I prefer Slashdot, where those that participate become our moderating peers...a participatory democracy. Your peers get to decide the merits of the post. Content isn't deleted. One is not baned for posting an inappropriate remark. And most importantly, those that moderate can't post. *added plus is the scoring...I like viewing at +3
Digg is a bit to much a direct democracy for me.
So want about it WotC, will you try slashcode with this Online Initiative?
Besides it will never happen until congress gives an exemption for the auto industry for accidents caused by faulty AIs.
Right now the auto industry isn't responsible if you drive your car on icy or wet roads, but if the AI gets in a wreck you can be sure there will be a law suit.
Another one is Ars Magica, which was basically a roleplaying game about casting magic, with some combat stuff for players who choose to play as powerless peons;)
I'll second Ars Magica. I think it would make a great Harry Potter game and I constantly wish I could run D&D with Ars Magica's magic system:
There are 15 Arts divided into 5 Techniques and 10 Forms. The Techniques are what one does and the Forms are the objects one does it to or with. This is sometimes called a "Verb/Noun" magic-system. The Arts are named in Latin.
The Techniques are named after the corresponding first-person singular present tense indicative mood Latin verb.
* Creo is the technique that lets the Magus create from nothingness, or make something a more "perfect" examplar of its kind; this includes healing as healed bodies are "more perfect" than wounded bodies.
* Intellego lets the Magus perceive or understand.
* Muto lets the Magus change the basic characteristics of something, giving something capabilities not naturally associated with its kind.
* Perdo lets the Magus destroy, deteriorate, make something age and other similar effects - essentially, making something a worse example of its kind.
* Rego lets the Magus control or manipulate something without affecting its basic characteristics.
The Forms are named after the corresponding singular accusative Latin noun.
* Animal is used for animals. Since bacteria were unknown in medieval times, illnesses are evil spirits, which come under Vim.
* Auram is used for anything that has to do with the air, including lightning. Weather phenomena such as rain and hail may be covered by Auram or Aquam.
* Aquam is used for water, or any other liquid. This includes ice in the 5th edition; In 4th edition, Ice was Terram, since it is a solid.
* Corpus (the incorrect declension Corporem was used in older editions) is used for the human body.
* Herbam is used for plants and fungi, and their products - cotton, wood, flour, etc.
* Ignem is used for fire, and fire's basic effects of light and heat.
* Imaginem deals with images, sounds, and other senses, though humans' ability to perceive them is part of Mentem.
* Mentem deals with intelligence and the mind, such as human or ghosts. The minds of animals are not affected by Mentem but by Animal.
* Terram stands for earth and minerals, or any other non-living solid.
* Vim has to do with pure magic; many spells to ban or control demons and other supernatural beings also belong to this Art, as such beings often have a form that expresses magically.
Thus, Creo Ignem spells create fire, and the normal effects of fire, such as heat or light; a Perdo Ignem spell may drop the temperature in a room. A typical Perdo Imaginem spell is granting invisibility to the caster by making one's image disappear. Rego Aquam could turn water into an unusual, but natural form (e.g. creating a pillar of water), while Muto Aquam could turn water into, for example, oil or wine; or change the nature of water so that it's murky and green but still healthy to drink. An Intellego Mentem spell may permit the caster to understand any language, or to read minds; and so on... A mage's skill when casting a spell is the sum of their scores in the appropriate technique and form.
If a spell involves more than one technique, or more than one form, this is known as a requisite; The lowest technique and form scores are used. For example, a spell to turn a person to stone would involve Muto, Corpus and Terram; The player would add the character's
I like Planescape - it's the weirdest and most philosophically deep of the settings
Well since alignment is getting a major overhaul for 4e, the philosophical aspect is going to be gray-er. Planescape had the Great Wheel planar structure behind it and all the factions pushing their own belief structure. Take away alignments and the Great Wheel, Planescape becomes just a think tank. Take away standard planes and it is difficult for WotC to write material for Planescape.
I don't see Sigil returning for 4e as anything except a token city for adventurers to visit, very similar to how it was treated in 3/3.5 edition.
I do see Ravenloft returning though...it fits with WotC's Points of Light campaign strategy.
I could even see Dark Sun return for the same PoL aspect.
Anything that is detailed and rich though...I don't see that happening with 4e.
Will any of these old, orphaned settings being making a comeback in 4.0? (Planescape. Please, Planescape!)
Doubtful on the Planescape unless it is a major overhaul. The planes got a major tweaking. The Abyss is now an evil elemental plane....picture the old limbo but with evil behind the destruction. Succubi are now Devils and so are all the other humanoid Demons....(if they are lucky...Malcanthet, the Queen of Succubi, is no more in 4e.)
As for Dark Sun...have hope...they are republishing the novels...so maybe they'll bring it back....though I can't imagine what Dark Sun would look like in the new edition.
I contribute to the Named Demon Project. Since the Abyss is the major change in the planes, are all the humanoid demon's going to become unique devils? What can we salvage from the Abyss?
I know I can add pieces back into the system for my home brew games, but paraphrasing a samurai quote 'treat little things with great importance'...I know the designer knows his stuff when he tosses in little details referencing the history of the game, eg easter eggs. Erik Mona and James Jacobs did a great job with "Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss". They combed the entire history of D&D and fixed the inconsistencies for the Abyss. I think their work has been tossed out the window for these new 4e changes.
I have no sympathy for sex offenders, but at this rate why not just put sex offenders to death and be done with it?
I know people at work that think that way. They ignore the innocent people getting out of jail because of DNA evidence from the 1980s finally being tested. They've never seen the documenry The Thin Blue Line:
The Thin Blue Line is a 1988 documentary film concerning the murder of a Texas police officer who had stopped a car for a routine traffic citation. The police are presented with two suspects, one a local underaged boy with a criminal record (David Ray Harris, a boy who returned to his hometown boasting that he had murdered a policeman) and the other a 28-year-old taciturn drifter with no criminal record whatsoever (Randall Dale Adams). The documentary presents testimony suggesting that the police altered, fabricated, and suppressed evidence to convict the man they wanted to be guilty, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
Then to get back to the original topic. My dad is a convicted sex offender. However I believe he is innocent. There was no evidence. The girl that was assaulted was 3years old. Heck my dad carded my mom when they met. The brother of the girl was a convicted sex offender, but that couldn't be mentioned in court because he was underage. The dad of the girl was divorced from the mother but came over every Wednesday to her mom's apartment to bath the girl.
My dad got 30 years and probably will have to serve the entire time. He'll be 88 years old when (if) he gets out. Don't get me wrong...my dad is a jerk, but he is not a child sex offender.
He was a techie too...I can't even imagine how painful this law would be to him once he got out....toss in the fact that he would have to live in the boonies because communities keep changing the laws on where sex offenders can live...and I can see wisdom in the previous comment...I mean we already are making it impossible for them to live...might as well give them the death penalty so at least they would get some automatic appeals and if an innocent man is put to death finally...at least it would be over...no more suffering.
Come on! The first thing I thought of was 'cool! we can do Rover's on Europe or Titan where we have liquid gas!
I see more use for this in space than here. A spy robot that walks on liquid? I'd love to see pictures from Titan where it walks out over the liquid air.
And I'd have to say that such a robot would be a true all terrain robot...it could zip around the coast lines looking for life.
I didn't explain well in my aside comment. Personally I think privacy is an illusion. I do not believe it exists any more.
Is it worth striving for? Yes, I think it is.
But if someone really wants to invade your privacy, there is little you can turn to as an average citizen beyond laws. It won't stop them from spying, but your private life might avoid becoming a public record subject to Lexis Nexis searches.
They have a downscaled version that is complete without all the frills that is totally free.
They have premier product that costs money, looks nice, but includes everything that the free version has.
Heck I can even use current libraries as an example. Frequently I've read a book at the library and then turned it around at Christmas time buying the same book for all my friends. The free no frills product above serves the same function...a filter to find the gem products. I will glad pay for quality.
I understand his points, but I think they are less relevant to a subscription service, which is what I want. I want to pay $X/month and be able to get as many books as I can read.
Lets make it really cheap...say $1/month to get all the books you could want. Everyone signs up because after all it is so cheap!
Why would anyone buy a physical book? Oh sure there are some people that would prefer holding a book, but lets just wait them out. The next generation would grow up with a subscription model because it is cheap.
Eventually the physical book people would be such a small % that they'd stop making the physical books.
Libraries could downsize since there would be less space needed for physical books.
The company I am with has workspaces (aka cubes)that everyone is unhappy with....so much so that we will be moving back to offices. Glass offices that are the exact size of our cubes...er..I mean workspaces.
I'd rather have the cube walls than glass walls and a door. At least I can talk quietly and the white noise can muffle the rest.
Glass walls though....Might as well bring back the village mentality and have public flogging for people that don't conform to the group think. I don't see any illusion (after all that is what it is...an illusion) of privacy in glass walls.
First thing I plan on doing...covering the glass walls with pictures of my latest family trip...I'll get my walls back.
Geoffrey A. Landis has summarized the perceived difficulties in colonizing Venus as being merely from the assumption that a colony would need to be based on the surface of a planet:
"However, viewed in a different way, the problem with Venus is merely that the ground level is too far below the one atmosphere level. At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet."
He has proposed aerostat habitats followed by floating cities, based on the concept that breathable air (21:79 Oxygen-Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense Venusian atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth.[4] In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 km above Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earthlike in the solar system - a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0C-50C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe and a protection from the acidic rain. Alternatively two-part domes could contain a lifting gas like hydrogen or helium (extractable from the atmosphere) to allow a higher mass density[5].
Cloud-top colonization also offers a way to avoid the issue of slow Venusian rotation. At the top of the clouds the wind speed on Venus reaches up to 95 m/s, circling the planet approximately every four Earth days in a phenomenon known as "super-rotation".[6] Colonies floating in this region could therefore have a much shorter day length by remaining untethered to the ground and moving with the atmosphere. While a space elevator extending to the surface of Venus is impractical due to the slow rotation, constructing a skyhook that extended into the upper atmosphere and rotated at the wind speed would be comparably difficult to constructing a space elevator on Earth.
Since such colonies would be viable in current Venusian conditions, this allows a dynamic approach to colonization in stead of requiring extensive terraforming measures in advance. The main challenge would be using a substance resistant to sulfuric acid to serve as the structure's outer layer; ceramics or metal sulfates could possibly serve in this role. (The sulfuric acid itself may prove to be the main motivation for creating the structure in the first place, as the acid has proven to be extremely useful for many different purposes.)
Landis has suggested that as more floating cities were built, they could form a solar shield around the planet, and could simultaneously be used to process the atmosphere into a more desirable form. If made from carbon nanotubes (recently fabricated into sheet form) or graphene (a sheet-like carbon allotrope), the major structural materials can be produced using carbon dioxide gathered in situ from the atmosphere. The recently synthesised amorphous carbonia might prove a useful structural material if it can be quenched to STP conditions, perhaps in a mixture with regular silica glass. According to Birch's analysis such colonies and materials would provide an immediate economic return from colonizing Venus, funding further terraforming efforts.
Who were the first people in North America? From where did they come? How did they arrive? The prehistory of the Americas has been widely studied. Over 70 years a consensus became so established that dissenters felt uneasy challenging it. Yet in 2001, genetics, anthropology and a few shards of flint combined to overturn the accepted facts and to push back one of the greatest technological changes that the Americas have ever seen by over five millennia.
The accepted version of the first Americans starts with a flint spearhead unearthed at Clovis, New Mexico, in 1933. Dated by the mammoth skeleton it lay beside to 11,500 years ago (11.5kya), it was distinctive because it had two faces, where flakes had been knapped away from a core flint. The find sparked a wave of similar reports, all dating from around the same period. There seemed to be nothing human before Clovis. Whoever those incomers were around 9,500BC, they appeared to have had a clean start. And the Clovis point was their icon - across 48 states.
An icon that was supremely effective: the introduction of the innovative spearpoint coincided with a mass extinction of the continent's megafauna. Not only the mammoth, but the giant armadillo, giant sloth and great black bear all disappeared soon after the Clovis point - and the hunters who used it - arrived on the scene.
But from where? With temperatures much colder than today and substantial polar ice sheets, sea levels were much lower. Asia and America were connected by a land bridge where now there's the open water of the Bering Strait. The traditional view of American prehistory was that Clovis people travelled by land from Asia.
This version was so accepted that few archaeologists even bothered to look for artefacts from periods before 10,000BC. But when Jim Adavasio continued to dig below the Clovis layer at his dig near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he found blades and blade cores dating back to 16,000BC. His findings were dismissed as erroneous; too astonishing to be credible. The Clovis consensus had too many reputations behind it to evaporate easily. Some archaeologists who backed Adavasio's conclusions with other similar data were accused of making radiocarbon dating errors or even of planting finds.
Decisive evidence would have to come from an independent arena. Douglas Wallace studies mitochondrial DNA, part of the human chromosomes that is passed unchanged from mother to daughter. It only varies when mistakes occur in the replication of the genetic code. Conveniently for Wallace's work (piecing together a global history of migration of native peoples) these mistakes crop up at a quite regular rate. The technique has allowed Wallace to map the geographical ancestry of all the Native American peoples back to Siberia and northeast Asia.
The route of the Clovis hypothesis was right. The date, however, was wrong - out by up to 20,000 years. Wallace's migration history showed waves of incomers. The Clovis people were clearly not the first humans to set foot across North America.
Dennis Stanford went back to first principles to investigate Clovis afresh, looking at tools from the period along the route Clovis was assumed to have taken from Siberia via the Bering Strait to Alaska. The large bifaced Clovis point was not in the archaeological record. Instead the tools used microblades, numerous small flint flakes lined up along the spear shaft to make its head.
Wallace's DNA work suggested migration from Asia to America but the Clovis trail contradicted it. Bruce Bradley stepped in to help solve this dichotomy, bringing with him one particular skill: flintknapping and the ability to read flint tools for their most intimate secrets.
He spotted the similarity in production method between the Clovis point and tools m
Slashdot Mirror
Why not? We fill our jury pools with random conscripts, so why not the Oval Office, as well? While we're at it, let's do the same for Congress.
In a way I like this idea, but it doesn't work too well. The random conscripts that form the Jury are tossed out by the defendant's attorney and the prosecution and sometimes the Judge.
So what we need is to weed out Jury members that are too radical for their peers....
so lets have a large number of random conscripts similar to Juries and lets vote on them like normal!
I can picture it now...your 'resume' being sent to millions of Americans and they decide if you would make a good representative.
Getting out of your duty though would be humorous...can you imagine all the CEOs trying not to serve as President because they could make more money in the private sector?
The same reason most people want to be promoted.
Increased benefits and paychecks... That's enough motivation for me.
If I document the stuff I hate doing I can eventually have someone under me do it instead.
I think you missed my phrase...'if you are happy where you are'
If you need the increased benefits and paychecks, then yes go for it.
I like the people I am working with and I have all the benefits I want. An increase in salary would be nice, but as long as I am meeting my needs and able to save then I don't have any need for more.
If you are not happy, then continue to strive for it. For others, happiness comes from being happy with what you have.
Keeping certificates is not enough. I worked for a company that got audited once. It was a small business, but run by a pair of lawyers who were sticklers for details. They shredded old paperwork after some number of years, and they got nailed because they had the certificates that came with NT 4.0, but not the receipts.
Keep modding parent because he is telling the truth. I was talking to a IP lawyer about what I needed to do to make sure scanning in my D&D books was legal. He was a software IP attorney so he gave me a software example. He said who could have everything, the manuals, the disks, & the certificates, but without the receipt you would be doomed. The reason is all those original materials could be counterfeits. Without the receipt you can't prove you bought the goods.
So back to my D&D scanning...basically I now include a scan of my receipt when I scan a book and attach it to the pdf.
Well, the old adage goes "If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted."
and then there is the old adage that goes "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
if you are happy where you are, why would you want to be replaced/promoted?
true...I should have said depression...here's a fun quote
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. by Harry S. Truman
I remember watching a news program that was talking about the college graduates that were turning violent in the middle east.
It all came down to jobs and unemployment. The youth went and got college degrees...returned home to find no jobs...
what are you going to do when you have no future and were expecting one? Some turn to violence...not a surprise.
I wonder what will happen to the US when we have a recession....
think if he were just left on his own mashing buttons, he'd get little out of it
The key is adult interaction. I enjoy teaching my 4 year old how to move around in video games. He does pretty good with webkidz games (the simple ones like Antz or polar plunge.)
It is just fun watching his mind work out that pressing X will move the pretty icon X direction and running into No-No guys is bad. I think it teaches him hand-eye coordination and makes him feel smart when he is using the same tools daddy is using.
My 7 year old plays all the games fairly well...but she doesn't have any patience if she fails. We are working on that. Co-op games (for kids) are good because they let an adult help in the game and they can see what to do...
Wow...I sort of agree.
I much prefer a government that taxes the wealthy and gives to the poor. Sure the poor won't hold on to the money, but it does promote churn in businesses. There is a larger middle class.
When governments give tax breaks, the rich hold on to more money and very little changes. It is hard to break into the rich club because the rich have the money. There is a small or possibly no middle class.
I hope this next election changes the way the country's economy goes...regardless of who gets into power. We've spent too much on others and need to help out at home.
Frak chips. What we need is Branding or company tattooing....so not only will the state save money, they'll make some money back. I can just imagine the McD's golden arches on someone's right cheek.
Seriously, I can't help seeing all these stupid ideas as the effects of gobalization. The more we are connected and influenced by others around the world, the more a single bad idea will spread.
On the whole the new world order isn't bad...for the majority. It just sucks not to be in power...or be powerless...criminals are the easy targets. Protecting children is another easy target.
The next thing is to make sure there are more criminals....make drugs illegal, make certain sex acts illegal, make intellectual thought a terrorist activity....poof...a ready made market to exploit...to enslave.
Thanks for the Canadian correction, Lord Zardoz ;) . May Morrus' grandmother live a long time.
I think I'm going to take a tip from Shemeska and Shade and avoid the 4e forum. There is too much fighting going on there and no way to weed through it besides the moderators. It makes it difficult to find the 'gem' posts that I would like to read/save/reference.
and communities like the excellent ENWorld
Any plans for Gleemax to have threading/scoring similar to Slashdot? I really would like to find the 'gem' posts in the message boards without having to wade through 10 pages of posts.
I haven't been banned from enworld ever...but I hate how Politically Correct Enworld has become since 4e was announced.
There are times I really love Slashdot. For all it's faults on moderating comments, slashdot code is the most fair that I've seen.
Enworld has a policy of discussing only things that "Morrus' grandmother" would want to hear. In other words if his grandmother (who is now dead) was nearby, you would watch your tongue. It does keep things civil on the site for the most part unlike the old WotC message boards and the Gleemax today.
However in the end it is a Communist message board. It is an oligarchy....a politically correct police state. Anyone can run to a moderator and bring down 'justice.' Justice being either a ban from the board and/or removal of comments. The comments on the site in theory are all treated the same because everyone is equal....except the moderators.
I prefer Slashdot, where those that participate become our moderating peers...a participatory democracy. Your peers get to decide the merits of the post. Content isn't deleted. One is not baned for posting an inappropriate remark. And most importantly, those that moderate can't post. *added plus is the scoring...I like viewing at +3
Digg is a bit to much a direct democracy for me.
So want about it WotC, will you try slashcode with this Online Initiative?
Besides it will never happen until congress gives an exemption for the auto industry for accidents caused by faulty AIs.
Right now the auto industry isn't responsible if you drive your car on icy or wet roads, but if the AI gets in a wreck you can be sure there will be a law suit.
I'll second Ars Magica. I think it would make a great Harry Potter game and I constantly wish I could run D&D with Ars Magica's magic system:
I like Planescape - it's the weirdest and most philosophically deep of the settings
Well since alignment is getting a major overhaul for 4e, the philosophical aspect is going to be gray-er. Planescape had the Great Wheel planar structure behind it and all the factions pushing their own belief structure. Take away alignments and the Great Wheel, Planescape becomes just a think tank. Take away standard planes and it is difficult for WotC to write material for Planescape.
I don't see Sigil returning for 4e as anything except a token city for adventurers to visit, very similar to how it was treated in 3/3.5 edition.
I do see Ravenloft returning though...it fits with WotC's Points of Light campaign strategy.
I could even see Dark Sun return for the same PoL aspect.
Anything that is detailed and rich though...I don't see that happening with 4e.
Will any of these old, orphaned settings being making a comeback in 4.0? (Planescape. Please, Planescape!)
Doubtful on the Planescape unless it is a major overhaul. The planes got a major tweaking. The Abyss is now an evil elemental plane....picture the old limbo but with evil behind the destruction. Succubi are now Devils and so are all the other humanoid Demons....(if they are lucky...Malcanthet, the Queen of Succubi, is no more in 4e.)
As for Dark Sun...have hope...they are republishing the novels...so maybe they'll bring it back....though I can't imagine what Dark Sun would look like in the new edition.
Why the big changes with D&D history?
I contribute to the Named Demon Project. Since the Abyss is the major change in the planes, are all the humanoid demon's going to become unique devils? What can we salvage from the Abyss?
I know I can add pieces back into the system for my home brew games, but paraphrasing a samurai quote 'treat little things with great importance'...I know the designer knows his stuff when he tosses in little details referencing the history of the game, eg easter eggs. Erik Mona and James Jacobs did a great job with "Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss". They combed the entire history of D&D and fixed the inconsistencies for the Abyss. I think their work has been tossed out the window for these new 4e changes.
I know people at work that think that way. They ignore the innocent people getting out of jail because of DNA evidence from the 1980s finally being tested. They've never seen the documenry The Thin Blue Line:
Then to get back to the original topic. My dad is a convicted sex offender. However I believe he is innocent. There was no evidence. The girl that was assaulted was 3years old. Heck my dad carded my mom when they met. The brother of the girl was a convicted sex offender, but that couldn't be mentioned in court because he was underage. The dad of the girl was divorced from the mother but came over every Wednesday to her mom's apartment to bath the girl.
My dad got 30 years and probably will have to serve the entire time. He'll be 88 years old when (if) he gets out. Don't get me wrong...my dad is a jerk, but he is not a child sex offender.
He was a techie too...I can't even imagine how painful this law would be to him once he got out....toss in the fact that he would have to live in the boonies because communities keep changing the laws on where sex offenders can live...and I can see wisdom in the previous comment...I mean we already are making it impossible for them to live...might as well give them the death penalty so at least they would get some automatic appeals and if an innocent man is put to death finally...at least it would be over...no more suffering.
Come on! The first thing I thought of was 'cool! we can do Rover's on Europe or Titan where we have liquid gas!
I see more use for this in space than here. A spy robot that walks on liquid? I'd love to see pictures from Titan where it walks out over the liquid air.
And I'd have to say that such a robot would be a true all terrain robot...it could zip around the coast lines looking for life.
You are not supposed to have total privacy @ work
I didn't explain well in my aside comment. Personally I think privacy is an illusion. I do not believe it exists any more.
Is it worth striving for? Yes, I think it is.
But if someone really wants to invade your privacy, there is little you can turn to as an average citizen beyond laws. It won't stop them from spying, but your private life might avoid becoming a public record subject to Lexis Nexis searches.
Successful methods I have seen do the following:
They have a downscaled version that is complete without all the frills that is totally free.
They have premier product that costs money, looks nice, but includes everything that the free version has.
Heck I can even use current libraries as an example. Frequently I've read a book at the library and then turned it around at Christmas time buying the same book for all my friends. The free no frills product above serves the same function...a filter to find the gem products. I will glad pay for quality.
I understand his points, but I think they are less relevant to a subscription service, which is what I want. I want to pay $X/month and be able to get as many books as I can read.
Lets make it really cheap...say $1/month to get all the books you could want. Everyone signs up because after all it is so cheap!
Why would anyone buy a physical book? Oh sure there are some people that would prefer holding a book, but lets just wait them out. The next generation would grow up with a subscription model because it is cheap.
Eventually the physical book people would be such a small % that they'd stop making the physical books.
Libraries could downsize since there would be less space needed for physical books.
And then they start raising the rates.
And then the poor wouldn't have access to books.
The company I am with has workspaces (aka cubes)that everyone is unhappy with....so much so that we will be moving back to offices. Glass offices that are the exact size of our cubes...er..I mean workspaces.
I'd rather have the cube walls than glass walls and a door. At least I can talk quietly and the white noise can muffle the rest.
Glass walls though....Might as well bring back the village mentality and have public flogging for people that don't conform to the group think. I don't see any illusion (after all that is what it is...an illusion) of privacy in glass walls.
First thing I plan on doing...covering the glass walls with pictures of my latest family trip...I'll get my walls back.
Is anyone else NOT surprised that they caught a kid?
There are stupid adult...but kids are supposed to be doing risky things...testing their limits....
I'm not surprised they caught him....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus
So I guess this study conflicts with the OP....