I can't even play Amnesia for very long without getting too flustered. You are alone in a haunted castle, no weapons (ever), and something is following you. Arx is an incredible game, easily a top RPG of the decade. The magic system is sort of hard to use, so you may want to look up the runes to get a feel for what they actually mean (like the "Create" rune + "Fire" rune lights torches, but you don't know the actual english names for the runes). Be ready to search long and hard without hints for things. Just remember to look under stuff you can move.
It seems easier to get a doctoral degree from a Chinese university as well. For example, I work with a Chinese guy that will spend three years here in a research capacity on an exchange program, not take a single course, publish a few papers, and THATS his PhD. He also told me he never paid attention in class in China for undergrad and just studied for the notorious exams when they came up. Hes a smart and nice guy, but he doesn't do a whole lot of independent research. He just does what he is told. I wish I could do what I am told for three years and have a PhD, but something tells me its not worth that much.
After having read many Chinese papers for my job as an RA at a Lab I can confidently say there is a higher incidence of crap papers coming out of China. There are plenty of brilliant Chinese scientists I work with but I think that because China has such a huge population, and everyone there wants jobs that require higher education, there is a higher incidence of competition and so Chinese science authors publish anything that is even remotely publishable regardless of how insignificant the contribution is to gain a couple more marks on their CV.
My point is poor people exist in the US as well. You can't justify first world poor by comparing it to third world poor and say "You have it so much better so be happy you have anything at all" and then use that as an excuse for the huge disparity in wealth in the US. The problem still remains, a bunch of rich people that are getting richer fast while everyone else is getting richer at an increasingly slower rate in comparison. This causes a gap in wealth to widen until the rich are hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than the poor and then they get preferential treatment in government, law, etc. American poor may own an Xbox and a TV in a one to two bedroom apartment, but American rich own islands with several houses on it, and/or several houses elsewhere on multi-acre plots, and/or a couple yachts and/or a private jet and/or skyscrapers. Were are talking millions vs. hundreds in dollars of assets. Come on. If you compare American poor to third world poor there isn't a 10000 to 1 difference in wealth unless we are talking about homeless destitute people, which there are many of those here as well. Just walk down the streets in NYC or Houston some time.
The alternative to nuclear is coal right now, and coal is much much worse. It has radioactive byproducts, and also coal fly-ash and bottom-ash which is highly toxic and needs to be contained and there are limited uses for it (i.e. not enough demand for it so it is used up). There would be less nuclear waste if people would let newer reactors get built. These new reactors would also shut down on their own without any cooling whatsoever. The worst case scenario is a natural disaster splitting the containment vessel open, but the same risk happens at coal burning plants, coal mines (some coal mines are on fire in Alabama and elsewhere and they can't put them out until it all burns up), coal-ash ponds and toxic dumps, except in the latter cases you also get the toxic materials leaking into the air, ground water and/or lakes/streams. You can get cancer just as easily from industrial and coal power generation waste. At least a modern built nuclear reactor would use up most of its waste in its attached breeder reactors and fuel recycling plants, and also contain a reaction that would shut itself down if anything like what happened at Fukushima happened.
Ive read some places that large wind farms would disrupt the jet stream and cause problems with the climate. Im not sure if its true, but Im inclined to partially believe it. Solar farms I think are the best option, considering in the US we have primo solar farm land in Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, etc.
I am definitely poor. Probably poorer than a working Chinese person. Im destitute if you factor in debts. I went a couple weeks on 20 cent western family burritos, ramen, and generic macaroni and cheese before. It wasnt that bad. Such is the problem with being a student.
Its rich. If you can't accumulate assets with that income you are an idiot or have an extreme amount of misfortune in the form of being sued, etc. 250,000 a year is about 21,000 a month. Even if taxed at 40 percent thats 12600. You could afford two house payments (~4000-5000), two car payments (~1500), eat out at moderately priced restaurants every day (~1500), and still save a couple to a few thousand a month (you have 4600 left for bills and savings).
And so the answer is to ban nuclear reactors? Come on. Coal plants are thousands of times more harmful to people and polluting than nuclear plants, even with all accidents factored in for nuclear plants, and accidents related to fly ash and bottom ash being released into the environment not being factored in for coal plants.
Coal fly ash and bottom ash are both toxic, and can easily be released into the environment. Storing these chemicals is almost as bad as storing nuclear waste. Meanwhile, there are experimental reactors on the east coast of the US that can use most of the waste by recycling it. Nuclear power is safe, and clean now. Older reactor designs just need to get phased out.
Meanwhile there are treatments being developed today that promise to rid us of many cancers. So whats your point? Id rather not breath in byproducts of coal every day that cause lung damage (not to mention cancer, but my point is that there are treatments) and risk a rare nuclear disaster. A 9.0 magnitude earth quake is extremely rare. Complaining that nuclear reactors are not safe because of that is like complaining that your house isn't safe from mile wide meteorites.
I agree with you. Money isn't everything. As a matter of fact all I want out of life is a modest house with enough room for my future kids, a budget recording studio so I can enjoy making music (maybe 1000 bucks tops every six years), and a PC that can play not even the latest games (maybe 1000 bucks tops every four years). I don't give two shits about cars or jewelry or fancy clothing. As a matter of fact I drive a 2002 car that has 80,000 miles on it, I shop at thrift stores, and I own no jewelry other than my wedding ring. My wedding ring cost 50 bucks, and my wife's wedding rings were bought without diamonds because it has a mineral that is prevalent in meteorites (and is also cheap). But I don't think that suffering through seven to ten years of school while racking up enough credit card debt and student loans to pay for my dream house is an awesome way to get there. Meanwhile, we have crappy medical care and no dental nor vision care and can barely afford food month to month with our rent and cell phone / internet bills which are required for my job. My wife has had dental problems that required an emergency room visit before we realized that just charging a dentist's fees on a credit card was a better idea. She also had a false diagnosis from a doctor that cost us thousands. Furthermore, I can't afford my own medication that helps to keep me sober (naltrexone) nor can I afford new glasses for my eyes. I understand if it sounds bad, but I think that society owes me something if I work for the betterment of mankind, because so far society hasn't really done a lot for me. My parents, brother and wife have done everything for me, and I owe them as long as they live (and even after), but society hasn't done shit for me.
I almost have my MS, and I can tell you I know leaps and bounds more about Math than when I graduated with a BS. I actually need a doctorate to make decent money in my discipline. I can maybe teach or work for 50000 a year with my MS. If I get a doctorate in a good subfield of mathematics I can easily triple that. A lot of engineering jobs I noticed will let you trade in between 4-6 years of job related experience for a MS requirement. Engineering BS's typically get paid more than I have a chance to make even with my MS. I worked just as hard to get my degree. As such, I believe I have it worse.
Sure. Experience matters as well. But a MS teaches you some things you usually won't learn on your own or at least shows an employer you know more. Sure, some people skip MS degrees all together and get a PhD after being in industry for awhile. However, getting an MS degree means you had access to Doctors of Philosophy mentoring you and generally they know the most compared to anyone else. Now, if you are speaking to the fact that many times people are undervalued based on degrees, I agree with you, but I am being realistic.
Someone invented these things because there was a demand for it, i.e. because they expected some sort of payoff. This payoff may be in the form of making your own life easier, making something more appealing to you, or for money. The fact that our society is more advanced than Africa speaks more to the fact that African societies have had some combination of not trying hard enough, ignorance, lack of resources, and subjugation occur to them.
Profit is the whole motivation behind almost every human being on earth. If you do not benefit from the fruits of your labor why bother working short of it being a hobby? I would like to get paid for playing video games, but there simply is not enough demand for it so I do it as a hobby. Ford didn't make the first affordable automobile to help people, he did it to get rich first and foremost. The internet was not created so we could share knowledge for free, it was created as a defense project. To this day I still pay my fair share (and even more with cell-phones) to even access it. Infrastructure and public schools are paid for by our tax dollars, and I fully expect to be paying my fair share for the rest of my life. As such I don't owe YOU for anything since I pay and/or will pay too. I suspect I will be paying more than I get out of it.
I will be paying my student loans off for the next 10-30 years, and it will eat up between five and ten years of salary. I am paying my dues. Society has only temporarily and insufficiently subsidized my education, however its going to be coming out of my paychecks plus interest in the future.
Every productive member of society pays to be governed, pays for infrastructure, pays to subsidize schools/universities, pays for military protection, and even pays for things they will never, ever use. Overall, I will be paying more to make society function than society will be giving back to me.
Why should I give more than I get to people who don't even want to help me get through school? Why should I help people that don't even want to make sure I have adequate health care? Why should I help people that time and time again vote against my interests? Why should I help people that allow such ridiculous disparities in wealth persist unchecked? If society wants engineers and scientists to work on things that benefit society, they need to start coughing up incentives to do so. I would be glad to work on things that help society if they would give me a livable wage, forgive some of my student loans, and give me adequate health care. I would even work at a significant discount to what is available in the financial sector. However, I don't believe it will ever happen because our society routinely expects something for nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't even play Amnesia for very long without getting too flustered. You are alone in a haunted castle, no weapons (ever), and something is following you. Arx is an incredible game, easily a top RPG of the decade. The magic system is sort of hard to use, so you may want to look up the runes to get a feel for what they actually mean (like the "Create" rune + "Fire" rune lights torches, but you don't know the actual english names for the runes). Be ready to search long and hard without hints for things. Just remember to look under stuff you can move.
if we could actually preserve the most important early gaming titles in a readily playable form.
Oddly enough I think that software pirates are already doing this. There is also Gog.com.
Try Arx Fatalis or Amnesia : The Dark Decent. The first one is older and cheap, the second one is a must play and is cheap (indie).
It seems easier to get a doctoral degree from a Chinese university as well. For example, I work with a Chinese guy that will spend three years here in a research capacity on an exchange program, not take a single course, publish a few papers, and THATS his PhD. He also told me he never paid attention in class in China for undergrad and just studied for the notorious exams when they came up. Hes a smart and nice guy, but he doesn't do a whole lot of independent research. He just does what he is told. I wish I could do what I am told for three years and have a PhD, but something tells me its not worth that much.
After having read many Chinese papers for my job as an RA at a Lab I can confidently say there is a higher incidence of crap papers coming out of China. There are plenty of brilliant Chinese scientists I work with but I think that because China has such a huge population, and everyone there wants jobs that require higher education, there is a higher incidence of competition and so Chinese science authors publish anything that is even remotely publishable regardless of how insignificant the contribution is to gain a couple more marks on their CV.
My point is poor people exist in the US as well. You can't justify first world poor by comparing it to third world poor and say "You have it so much better so be happy you have anything at all" and then use that as an excuse for the huge disparity in wealth in the US. The problem still remains, a bunch of rich people that are getting richer fast while everyone else is getting richer at an increasingly slower rate in comparison. This causes a gap in wealth to widen until the rich are hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than the poor and then they get preferential treatment in government, law, etc. American poor may own an Xbox and a TV in a one to two bedroom apartment, but American rich own islands with several houses on it, and/or several houses elsewhere on multi-acre plots, and/or a couple yachts and/or a private jet and/or skyscrapers. Were are talking millions vs. hundreds in dollars of assets. Come on. If you compare American poor to third world poor there isn't a 10000 to 1 difference in wealth unless we are talking about homeless destitute people, which there are many of those here as well. Just walk down the streets in NYC or Houston some time.
The alternative to nuclear is coal right now, and coal is much much worse. It has radioactive byproducts, and also coal fly-ash and bottom-ash which is highly toxic and needs to be contained and there are limited uses for it (i.e. not enough demand for it so it is used up). There would be less nuclear waste if people would let newer reactors get built. These new reactors would also shut down on their own without any cooling whatsoever. The worst case scenario is a natural disaster splitting the containment vessel open, but the same risk happens at coal burning plants, coal mines (some coal mines are on fire in Alabama and elsewhere and they can't put them out until it all burns up), coal-ash ponds and toxic dumps, except in the latter cases you also get the toxic materials leaking into the air, ground water and/or lakes/streams. You can get cancer just as easily from industrial and coal power generation waste. At least a modern built nuclear reactor would use up most of its waste in its attached breeder reactors and fuel recycling plants, and also contain a reaction that would shut itself down if anything like what happened at Fukushima happened.
As a resident of Texas that is actually from the northwest, I would rather you turn Texas into a nuclear waste dump. Im GTFO of here anyway.
Then there's the super volcano under Yellowstone.
Ive read some places that large wind farms would disrupt the jet stream and cause problems with the climate. Im not sure if its true, but Im inclined to partially believe it. Solar farms I think are the best option, considering in the US we have primo solar farm land in Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, etc.
I advocate a return to the scrolls. Drinking while reading should be a crime.
Indeed. How the fuck did it make front page. Its an extremely old concept.
I am definitely poor. Probably poorer than a working Chinese person. Im destitute if you factor in debts. I went a couple weeks on 20 cent western family burritos, ramen, and generic macaroni and cheese before. It wasnt that bad. Such is the problem with being a student.
Its rich. If you can't accumulate assets with that income you are an idiot or have an extreme amount of misfortune in the form of being sued, etc. 250,000 a year is about 21,000 a month. Even if taxed at 40 percent thats 12600. You could afford two house payments (~4000-5000), two car payments (~1500), eat out at moderately priced restaurants every day (~1500), and still save a couple to a few thousand a month (you have 4600 left for bills and savings).
50,000 a year is pretty low for a family with a lot of student loans. 250,000 is rich for sure.
And reduce in radioactivity quicker than you think, not billions of years, that was his point.
Just look up Coal-ash pollution and accidents to see what the alternative is. Ill take nuclear power thanks.
And so the answer is to ban nuclear reactors? Come on. Coal plants are thousands of times more harmful to people and polluting than nuclear plants, even with all accidents factored in for nuclear plants, and accidents related to fly ash and bottom ash being released into the environment not being factored in for coal plants.
Coal fly ash and bottom ash are both toxic, and can easily be released into the environment. Storing these chemicals is almost as bad as storing nuclear waste. Meanwhile, there are experimental reactors on the east coast of the US that can use most of the waste by recycling it. Nuclear power is safe, and clean now. Older reactor designs just need to get phased out.
Meanwhile there are treatments being developed today that promise to rid us of many cancers. So whats your point? Id rather not breath in byproducts of coal every day that cause lung damage (not to mention cancer, but my point is that there are treatments) and risk a rare nuclear disaster. A 9.0 magnitude earth quake is extremely rare. Complaining that nuclear reactors are not safe because of that is like complaining that your house isn't safe from mile wide meteorites.
I agree with you. Money isn't everything. As a matter of fact all I want out of life is a modest house with enough room for my future kids, a budget recording studio so I can enjoy making music (maybe 1000 bucks tops every six years), and a PC that can play not even the latest games (maybe 1000 bucks tops every four years). I don't give two shits about cars or jewelry or fancy clothing. As a matter of fact I drive a 2002 car that has 80,000 miles on it, I shop at thrift stores, and I own no jewelry other than my wedding ring. My wedding ring cost 50 bucks, and my wife's wedding rings were bought without diamonds because it has a mineral that is prevalent in meteorites (and is also cheap). But I don't think that suffering through seven to ten years of school while racking up enough credit card debt and student loans to pay for my dream house is an awesome way to get there. Meanwhile, we have crappy medical care and no dental nor vision care and can barely afford food month to month with our rent and cell phone / internet bills which are required for my job. My wife has had dental problems that required an emergency room visit before we realized that just charging a dentist's fees on a credit card was a better idea. She also had a false diagnosis from a doctor that cost us thousands. Furthermore, I can't afford my own medication that helps to keep me sober (naltrexone) nor can I afford new glasses for my eyes. I understand if it sounds bad, but I think that society owes me something if I work for the betterment of mankind, because so far society hasn't really done a lot for me. My parents, brother and wife have done everything for me, and I owe them as long as they live (and even after), but society hasn't done shit for me.
I almost have my MS, and I can tell you I know leaps and bounds more about Math than when I graduated with a BS. I actually need a doctorate to make decent money in my discipline. I can maybe teach or work for 50000 a year with my MS. If I get a doctorate in a good subfield of mathematics I can easily triple that. A lot of engineering jobs I noticed will let you trade in between 4-6 years of job related experience for a MS requirement. Engineering BS's typically get paid more than I have a chance to make even with my MS. I worked just as hard to get my degree. As such, I believe I have it worse.
Sure. Experience matters as well. But a MS teaches you some things you usually won't learn on your own or at least shows an employer you know more. Sure, some people skip MS degrees all together and get a PhD after being in industry for awhile. However, getting an MS degree means you had access to Doctors of Philosophy mentoring you and generally they know the most compared to anyone else. Now, if you are speaking to the fact that many times people are undervalued based on degrees, I agree with you, but I am being realistic.
five and ten years of salary
Actually, this is a mistake. It will be probably between 2-6. Those former quotes are if I continue to make shitty wages.
Someone invented these things because there was a demand for it, i.e. because they expected some sort of payoff. This payoff may be in the form of making your own life easier, making something more appealing to you, or for money. The fact that our society is more advanced than Africa speaks more to the fact that African societies have had some combination of not trying hard enough, ignorance, lack of resources, and subjugation occur to them.
Profit is the whole motivation behind almost every human being on earth. If you do not benefit from the fruits of your labor why bother working short of it being a hobby? I would like to get paid for playing video games, but there simply is not enough demand for it so I do it as a hobby. Ford didn't make the first affordable automobile to help people, he did it to get rich first and foremost. The internet was not created so we could share knowledge for free, it was created as a defense project. To this day I still pay my fair share (and even more with cell-phones) to even access it. Infrastructure and public schools are paid for by our tax dollars, and I fully expect to be paying my fair share for the rest of my life. As such I don't owe YOU for anything since I pay and/or will pay too. I suspect I will be paying more than I get out of it.
I will be paying my student loans off for the next 10-30 years, and it will eat up between five and ten years of salary. I am paying my dues. Society has only temporarily and insufficiently subsidized my education, however its going to be coming out of my paychecks plus interest in the future.
Every productive member of society pays to be governed, pays for infrastructure, pays to subsidize schools/universities, pays for military protection, and even pays for things they will never, ever use. Overall, I will be paying more to make society function than society will be giving back to me.
Why should I give more than I get to people who don't even want to help me get through school? Why should I help people that don't even want to make sure I have adequate health care? Why should I help people that time and time again vote against my interests? Why should I help people that allow such ridiculous disparities in wealth persist unchecked? If society wants engineers and scientists to work on things that benefit society, they need to start coughing up incentives to do so. I would be glad to work on things that help society if they would give me a livable wage, forgive some of my student loans, and give me adequate health care. I would even work at a significant discount to what is available in the financial sector. However, I don't believe it will ever happen because our society routinely expects something for nothing.