While I agree that $75k can easily let you be happy in a small town or possibly in a small city in the middle of nowhere. But living on that in or near a medium to large city or in a major metropolitan area and you will be barely making ends meet, especially if you have a family and need a car and you're the only bread winner.
Without knowing the details, I guess that the $75k number was an average between country folk being happy at $50k and city dwellers needing $100k. A number that means nothing because who lives half in the city and half in the country? They should present the data geographically.
... This is one of the problems with the idea that a lot of people seem to have, usually based on half-remembered lessons from high school "science" class, that there's thing called "the scientific method." There isn't; there are a whole bunch of scientific methods, all more or less related but difffering from field to field. Observational sciences such as astronomy must by the nature of the field use different methods from experimental sciences such as, say, microbiology....
Differing, yes. The fields where experimentation is possible we can have confidence in the results. Experiments are done and theories are put to the test. The fields were experimentation is difficult or impossible we are stuck with having theories that happen to fit what facts we have. Sometimes, not even that. Sometimes, it is a theory because it "feels" right because it is abstracted several times from anything resembling a fact. That is a good thing as long as we understand that tomorrow it could be usurped by something entirely different. It's OK as long as we know that that theory is just an educated guess. How much confidence can you really have in a guess?
The problem with Journalism (and some people), and this article is guilty of it in the headline, is that they take a theory from the latter fields from above and pass it off as something much more solid than an educated guess. "The Sun's mystery Explained!" Yes, I know they do that to sell more copy, but it still a problem all the same. I suppose "New Theory for Sun Mystery!" isn't as exciting, but it would be the truth. It's a theory and it should be questioned early and often otherwise scientists are not doing their jobs.
I have seen this sort of activity on other sites, and from both sides of the political fence.
A user content/link driven site starts up, then gets semi-famous for some reason. I'll read and enjoy for a while. Then one day, it's as if the DNC or RNC has just purchased it. All links/opinions from the other side just dissipates. I don't mind political discussion, but there is no discussion anymore only one side of the story. And they tend to get more extreme as time passes. I stop reading so much and mentally classify the site as just an extension of which ever political party has co-opted it.
To be honest, I had though that Digg was co-opted by the DNC years ago. I was surprised to read this story. Sounds like a turf war has erupted. And honestly, I sort of was expecting this to happen.
Sites like Digg,/., Fark, etc. are being recognized by political parties as growing factors in shaping the way people think. They are the soap boxes. It's not a good idea for a political party to leave this battleground for the hearts and minds of people go unchallenged. So they round up a bunch of loyal members, get them energized, then let them loose on the site to specifically suppress the opposition and promote their agenda. What's happening on Digg is really a counter-attack.
Another example, a here-to-be-unnamed political blog that I read from time to time starts to get popular. They implement a vote system, + or -, per registered user. Scores are tallied. After a while, I notice that posts from the owner of the site start going negative regularly. Poor writing? No. Obviously the site got large enough to attract the attention of people with opposing views. Whether or not it was intentional, now large numbers of "the enemy" attack the blog giving the posts negative scores and trolling in the comments.
Both Democrats and Republicans do this. I have seen it. Get used to it. Welcome to The War Zone people.
I have a long commute, 50+ miles one way. I see lots of hybrids and many of them are driving well over 70mph on the highway. No way they are getting the fuel savings doing that. I checked around and read that a Prius takes a fuel savings hit past 68 cause the gas engine has to rev up to assist. Drops well below 40 mpg. I'm practically even with them in my American "gas guzzler" that I probably bought for half the price.
Referring to home monitoring services and systems as "Home Security" is a bit of a misnomer. They don't "secure" anything. At best, it's just a log file for who enters and leaves. And even then, you are not assured of getting a positive ID to catch them later.
The original poster said "things I don't want stolen". That means Physical Security, not cameras, DVRs, and computers, not monitoring. Guns are fine, but do no good if you are not home to use it. What they really need are enhanced door and window security measures.
Deterrence. This is the first step. Make your place a "Hard Target", meaning that it appears to look harder or more dangerous to get into than the place next door. The most obvious deterrent is light. Keep lights on inside and out. Sound is another, but if thieves get close enough for that it's time for other things. Things like extra physical security.
Dead-bolts, latches, etc are physical security but can also act as a deterrent. Locks can be picked, but if thieves see they have to pick several they may decide to pass you by instead. You can have them all keyed off the same key. Inside latches or bracing are excellent as now they'll have to pretty much tear the door or window off just to get inside, which would attract too much attention. However, you cannot engage them when you are not there, but you can use them on all but the one entrance you plan on using when you return.
Another door attack is jimmying or separating the frame from the door enough to allow the bolts to slide out. The fix is to have a solid frame around the door that does not bend easily. If you build, you can have rather large steel poles put in place.
Another attack is to just kick the door in and rip all the bolts out of the frame. The fix for that is to have the frame reinforced with a long metal plate to replace the small one that is just around the bolt. Strong screws secure the plate to the frame of the house.
Windows are tricky because we want to see out, but thieves can just cut or smash the glass. Replace old windows with modern ones that have extra security features like double locks and those tabs that prevent the window from opening fully. Also, there is a security product out there that puts a plastic sheet on the inside of the window that reinforces the glass like the front windshield of a car. A thief could crack the glass with a crow bar, but the plastic holds it all together. Essentially, they could swing their arms off before they got though the plastic.
Beyond that, you may want to get a safe that you can secure to the wall or floor, depending what you are trying to protect. Some wall safes are made to be hidden, which are more for home beauty than security. Don't bother with biometrics, just get a keypad.
Ditto. My trackball was on the index finger and I could play fairly well myself. I also had the sensitivity high, but I was able to use both my index and middle finger to manipulate it.
However, it eventually broke and when I switched to an optical mouse I did notice that over time I was able to make smoother motions because the sensitivity was not so high.
You can become used to, and good at, any interface over time.
Specifically the Quick Time team should sue the iPhone and iPod OS team for not putting Quick Time support in the OS. Seriously, why must we all convert our Quick Time movies? Is it really that hard to support their own format on their own device?
"The Supreme Court never reached the equal protection claims. Nonetheless, this case is sometimes incorrectly cited as holding that corporations, as juristic persons, are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.[13]"
If you want "real change", you have to change game progression.
Right now, most RPGs have but a single goal: Put the smack down on the Final Boss and his minions. Really, it's all about Damage. Change that, and you change the game and the way the players play it. Gamers use those "trinity" roles, find those imbalances, and create those powerful character builds because of there is only _ONE_ way to make progress in the game. There are no options, no choices. You are forced to grind for levels and gear so when you take on the Big Bad you can withstand his attacks and kill him with your attacks.
To truly change this, you have to give the players options on how to progress. Let them sneak past instead of fight. Instead of reducing the boss's HP to zero, have another way to neutralize them. And not just the final boss, but everything in the entire game. Unfortunately, that greatly multiplies the effort needed to design and create the game. You must add entire paths to victory, besides combat. How about stealth to victory? Economics to victory? Politics to victory?
Stealth to victory could be as simple as "sneak in and slam dunk the one ring" or perhaps "sneak in, gather the vital intelligence, then sneak out and give it to the King."
Economics to victory could be "earn X gold before Y time, then give it to the King" or perhaps "provide all the Kings Knights with these power armor suits"
Politics to victory could be "convince 3 of these 4 other Kingdoms to join with us in this war" or "make sure that Big Bad does not win this election in this city".
In an MMO, once you have all these paths going at the same time, you pit the players against each other. You'll get this beautiful chaos of one group trying to do this or that and another group trying to prevent them. The opposing group becomes your "boss" you must defeat. You won't be able to just read the strategy guide and follow a plan to ultimate victory. Your "boss" will be multiple intelligent gamers that will quickly adapt to your tactics and furthermore the groups will change as they come and go online.
Just get a new HD. Why risk _everything_ when you can be in the free and clear for a very well spent $100 and a few hours re-install. You think that guy wouldn't pay $10,000 now to make all his troubles disappear??
It's the unforgivable crime. If that stuff winds up on your drive, smash it, then toss it, and get a new one. Tell whoever that the HD died and you need a new one. Even if you have to put it on a charge card or borrow the money. Don't even mess around with shredders or wipe programs. Why take any chance at all??
YMMV. I had one burn out shortly after purchase. Others have been going for well over 3 years. (lost another due to lightning strike along with other things)
I have 3 Three-Way CFLs and 3 standard CFLs, 2 of which are outside. No, they're not the special "outdoor" ones. I compared those with the standard type and they have the same tolerances but were half the price. Only downside to CFL outdoors is the long warm-up time in cold weather. I'm talking minutes when below freezing. Just have to remember ahead of time.
I'll switch to LED in a heartbeat when they become available in my area. Last I checked, a broken LED is not a HAZMAT spill.
My biggest problem is that the Steam client itself performs like it was written in QuickBASIC.
I could not agree more. Granted, I have an older system (P4 1.8 GHz) that I use to game. Several months to a year ago, it could launch Steam fairly easily. It took no longer to launch than most of the other apps on the system. It was a matter of seconds.
Then enter the one update. All of a sudden it takes minutes to launch Steam. Seriously, I can double-click the icon then walk downstairs to the kitchen, make a sandwich, get a drink and then walk back upstairs and it's still loading. What happened?? (The other apps are still in the seconds range.) Oh, and sometimes it refuses to close with no explanation, which forces me to go process hunting.
Congress has more power over the economy than the President. Congress writes the spending bills. Congress adds the "pork" or "ear-marks". Congress runs up the deficit. The budget for Federal Agencies is not the Economy.
If you are serious about the Economy, you have to pay attention to your Congressional Representitives, one in the House and one in the Senate.
As far as the PotUS's control of the US economy, the PotUS really only has two controls. First, who he appoints to chair the Federal Reserve Bank. This controls the Prime Interest rates which can influence bank lending and inflation. Second is the PotUS veto power. The weaker of the two, this allows some input to the taxation level, which is how much money the Federal Government allows to have a direct flow into the economy. Higher taxes means less money the people will have to spend. (People spending money IS the economy.)
Once upon a time, the wife asked me to 'shop an old picture to remove someone she wasn't friends with. Turned out pretty good. You can tell something was done, on close inspection, but it looks convincing from a distance. She thought it was good enough to print out and put in a frame in our guest bedroom.
Agree. Hack-n-slash adventures have their place and the Diablo series is the best of them. Keep it simple and fun, Blizzard!
D2 was a master stroke. I hope they can keep the same balance and gameplay. Not sure what to think about the apparent lack of a potion belt. *crosses fingers*
If they change one thing between D2 and D3, I wish it would be the Unique Items. There were a lot of worthless Uniques and Set Items. It was the same in D1. You play and play and finally get a unique drop only to be let down because it's really not that good. In both games you could get magic items better than the uniques, and much easier. Granted, uniques are better in D2 than D1, but I wish they would keep going and make them better still. You know, really make them stand out from the magic items. Make all of them very powerful artifacts.
Yes. In fact, there are a lot of things they likely do not account for. Hot hitters are pitched around and more likely to walk. The ease of a batter getting a hit will change from inning to inning and pitcher to pitcher. Weather conditions. Injury. Pitchers "setting up" the hitter.
I listen to his show. Sometime after that, someone from Apple called him about it. I don't know if they helped him fix it, though. He mentioned that someone from the board of directors was involved, then Mr. Snerdly asked if it was Al Gore.:)
Yes, Ron Paul is nuts. For example, how exactly is he going to move a $7 trillion economy back to the gold standard when there's less than $3 trillion in gold on the planet?
Correction. The current US Economy is closer to $14 trillion. (NY Times estimate for 2007)
Correction. The estimation of all the gold ever mined in the world would be worth closer to $4 trillion on today's market value. ((2001 estimate of "all the gold ever mined" + modest production for 6 years) x current market value)
... But I am really sick of the Ronulans spamming internet forums and polls. A lot of us are annoyed by you, and this actually harms your candidate.
Spamming political campaign polls is NEVER a good idea. Polls are suppose to be an indicator. When you "stuff the ballot box" for a poll you are in effect lying to your candidate. Instead of seeing how well he is actually doing, you are giving him false information. You make him believe his positions are more popular than they actually are. So, instead of having accurate information to base his campaign on, you are feeding him BS. How can he tell if his ads are being effective? How can he tell if his chances are better if he stresses this issue and downplays that issue? He can't. Why? Because his fanatical supporters are tainting the polling data by making it look like his numbers are consistent no matter what he does or says. That is a bad thing. Your candidate needs accurate information so he can adjust his campaign accordingly.
I can imagine that earth's "core" may be soft. My reasoning tells me that the "core" is not subject to much gravity. A micro-gravity environment, if you will, due to the relative equal mass in all directions pulling in all directions that balance. Once I think that, I have trouble wrapping my brain around the question: "How great is the pressure?"
If the answer is (relatively speaking) low pressure, then with the estimated high temperature I can imagine a liquid like center.
I was just discussing this with my sister today. (we are in our 30's)
Was it the Midi-chlorians, Jar Jar Binks, the actors? When did Star Wars jump the shark?. A bonus question: Did George Lucas redeem himself in Episode III?"
When did it "jump"? If I was forced to choose one moment, it would be Midi-chlorians. However, things are not that simple in this case. I'll explain that in a minute. Lucas is a visionary and deserves every dollar he makes, but things started to slide down-hill with Episode 1. Bad dialog, sub-par acting, and plot killers (Midi-chlorians & Jar-Jar) all contributed. So I'd say that the jump started in TPM at the explanation of the Midi-chlorians.
Did Episode III redeem the franchise? In the short term, yes. In the long term, no. This is where things are not that simple. In the short term RotS is a better movie than the first two films, but not by much. I was not expecting Shakespeare, just lightsaber duels and space battles. However, looking at the big picture RotS was doomed due to the events of the prior films. To redeem the franchise, Lucas would have had to re-shoot the first two films or break RotS into two films. The "fall of Anakin" in RotS was not very convincing. Mostly, due to time limitations. Lucas painted himself into a corner and realized he had half of a film in which to do it. So, when I view the films I see a very slow motion "jump the shark" that began early in TPM and ended in RotS.
Bonus Answer: What went wrong with the big picture? IMHO, the story/time-line of Anakin was not as good as it needed to be. He started out way too happy and a bit too young. In TPM, we should have seen a disgruntled slave, about the same age as Amidala, that resents constantly being told what to do and dreams of being free some day instead of the "too happy to help" child. Basically, move his transition to the dark side up a bit in the time-line. Anakin should be on the fence from day one with the memory of his Mother, desires for Amidala, the Jedi Order being extra harsh on him (from Anakin's POV), and Palpatine nudging him to the dark side constantly. Eventually, have Anakin take "The Siegfried Oath" to Palpatine, but take the time to do it right. Build up some pressure over an entire movie or so to the point where Anakin says something to the effect of "I've had it with this stupid Jedi Order!" and decides to go to the dark side. The moment of Anakin's transition in RotS is lame at best. (In fact, so is the Emperor's case against Luke. He had ZERO chance to convert Luke. Luke's attacks on Vader in defense of Lea were more out of Love for Lea than Hate of Vader) I truly believe that a script/plot could be generated where Anakin falls to the dark side in the second movie and the third is entirely Vader slaughtering the Jedi one (or more) at a time.
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While I agree that $75k can easily let you be happy in a small town or possibly in a small city in the middle of nowhere. But living on that in or near a medium to large city or in a major metropolitan area and you will be barely making ends meet, especially if you have a family and need a car and you're the only bread winner.
Without knowing the details, I guess that the $75k number was an average between country folk being happy at $50k and city dwellers needing $100k. A number that means nothing because who lives half in the city and half in the country? They should present the data geographically.
Ah, the old "image intensifiers".
... This is one of the problems with the idea that a lot of people seem to have, usually based on half-remembered lessons from high school "science" class, that there's thing called "the scientific method." There isn't; there are a whole bunch of scientific methods, all more or less related but difffering from field to field. Observational sciences such as astronomy must by the nature of the field use different methods from experimental sciences such as, say, microbiology. ...
Differing, yes. The fields where experimentation is possible we can have confidence in the results. Experiments are done and theories are put to the test. The fields were experimentation is difficult or impossible we are stuck with having theories that happen to fit what facts we have. Sometimes, not even that. Sometimes, it is a theory because it "feels" right because it is abstracted several times from anything resembling a fact. That is a good thing as long as we understand that tomorrow it could be usurped by something entirely different. It's OK as long as we know that that theory is just an educated guess. How much confidence can you really have in a guess?
The problem with Journalism (and some people), and this article is guilty of it in the headline, is that they take a theory from the latter fields from above and pass it off as something much more solid than an educated guess. "The Sun's mystery Explained!" Yes, I know they do that to sell more copy, but it still a problem all the same. I suppose "New Theory for Sun Mystery!" isn't as exciting, but it would be the truth. It's a theory and it should be questioned early and often otherwise scientists are not doing their jobs.
I have seen this sort of activity on other sites, and from both sides of the political fence.
A user content/link driven site starts up, then gets semi-famous for some reason. I'll read and enjoy for a while. Then one day, it's as if the DNC or RNC has just purchased it. All links/opinions from the other side just dissipates. I don't mind political discussion, but there is no discussion anymore only one side of the story. And they tend to get more extreme as time passes. I stop reading so much and mentally classify the site as just an extension of which ever political party has co-opted it.
To be honest, I had though that Digg was co-opted by the DNC years ago. I was surprised to read this story. Sounds like a turf war has erupted. And honestly, I sort of was expecting this to happen.
Sites like Digg, /., Fark, etc. are being recognized by political parties as growing factors in shaping the way people think. They are the soap boxes. It's not a good idea for a political party to leave this battleground for the hearts and minds of people go unchallenged. So they round up a bunch of loyal members, get them energized, then let them loose on the site to specifically suppress the opposition and promote their agenda. What's happening on Digg is really a counter-attack.
Another example, a here-to-be-unnamed political blog that I read from time to time starts to get popular. They implement a vote system, + or -, per registered user. Scores are tallied. After a while, I notice that posts from the owner of the site start going negative regularly. Poor writing? No. Obviously the site got large enough to attract the attention of people with opposing views. Whether or not it was intentional, now large numbers of "the enemy" attack the blog giving the posts negative scores and trolling in the comments.
Both Democrats and Republicans do this. I have seen it. Get used to it. Welcome to The War Zone people.
I have a long commute, 50+ miles one way. I see lots of hybrids and many of them are driving well over 70mph on the highway. No way they are getting the fuel savings doing that. I checked around and read that a Prius takes a fuel savings hit past 68 cause the gas engine has to rev up to assist. Drops well below 40 mpg. I'm practically even with them in my American "gas guzzler" that I probably bought for half the price.
If you buy Green, you should drive Green.
Referring to home monitoring services and systems as "Home Security" is a bit of a misnomer. They don't "secure" anything. At best, it's just a log file for who enters and leaves. And even then, you are not assured of getting a positive ID to catch them later.
The original poster said "things I don't want stolen". That means Physical Security, not cameras, DVRs, and computers, not monitoring. Guns are fine, but do no good if you are not home to use it. What they really need are enhanced door and window security measures.
Deterrence. This is the first step. Make your place a "Hard Target", meaning that it appears to look harder or more dangerous to get into than the place next door. The most obvious deterrent is light. Keep lights on inside and out. Sound is another, but if thieves get close enough for that it's time for other things. Things like extra physical security.
Dead-bolts, latches, etc are physical security but can also act as a deterrent. Locks can be picked, but if thieves see they have to pick several they may decide to pass you by instead. You can have them all keyed off the same key. Inside latches or bracing are excellent as now they'll have to pretty much tear the door or window off just to get inside, which would attract too much attention. However, you cannot engage them when you are not there, but you can use them on all but the one entrance you plan on using when you return.
Another door attack is jimmying or separating the frame from the door enough to allow the bolts to slide out. The fix is to have a solid frame around the door that does not bend easily. If you build, you can have rather large steel poles put in place.
Another attack is to just kick the door in and rip all the bolts out of the frame. The fix for that is to have the frame reinforced with a long metal plate to replace the small one that is just around the bolt. Strong screws secure the plate to the frame of the house.
Windows are tricky because we want to see out, but thieves can just cut or smash the glass. Replace old windows with modern ones that have extra security features like double locks and those tabs that prevent the window from opening fully. Also, there is a security product out there that puts a plastic sheet on the inside of the window that reinforces the glass like the front windshield of a car. A thief could crack the glass with a crow bar, but the plastic holds it all together. Essentially, they could swing their arms off before they got though the plastic.
Beyond that, you may want to get a safe that you can secure to the wall or floor, depending what you are trying to protect. Some wall safes are made to be hidden, which are more for home beauty than security. Don't bother with biometrics, just get a keypad.
Ditto. My trackball was on the index finger and I could play fairly well myself. I also had the sensitivity high, but I was able to use both my index and middle finger to manipulate it.
However, it eventually broke and when I switched to an optical mouse I did notice that over time I was able to make smoother motions because the sensitivity was not so high.
You can become used to, and good at, any interface over time.
I personally feel that Apple should sue itself.
Specifically the Quick Time team should sue the iPhone and iPod OS team for not putting Quick Time support in the OS. Seriously, why must we all convert our Quick Time movies? Is it really that hard to support their own format on their own device?
...but the article you link to states otherwise:
"The Supreme Court never reached the equal protection claims. Nonetheless, this case is sometimes incorrectly cited as holding that corporations, as juristic persons, are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.[13]"
If you want "real change", you have to change game progression.
Right now, most RPGs have but a single goal: Put the smack down on the Final Boss and his minions. Really, it's all about Damage. Change that, and you change the game and the way the players play it. Gamers use those "trinity" roles, find those imbalances, and create those powerful character builds because of there is only _ONE_ way to make progress in the game. There are no options, no choices. You are forced to grind for levels and gear so when you take on the Big Bad you can withstand his attacks and kill him with your attacks.
To truly change this, you have to give the players options on how to progress. Let them sneak past instead of fight. Instead of reducing the boss's HP to zero, have another way to neutralize them. And not just the final boss, but everything in the entire game. Unfortunately, that greatly multiplies the effort needed to design and create the game. You must add entire paths to victory, besides combat. How about stealth to victory? Economics to victory? Politics to victory?
Stealth to victory could be as simple as "sneak in and slam dunk the one ring" or perhaps "sneak in, gather the vital intelligence, then sneak out and give it to the King."
Economics to victory could be "earn X gold before Y time, then give it to the King" or perhaps "provide all the Kings Knights with these power armor suits"
Politics to victory could be "convince 3 of these 4 other Kingdoms to join with us in this war" or "make sure that Big Bad does not win this election in this city".
In an MMO, once you have all these paths going at the same time, you pit the players against each other. You'll get this beautiful chaos of one group trying to do this or that and another group trying to prevent them. The opposing group becomes your "boss" you must defeat. You won't be able to just read the strategy guide and follow a plan to ultimate victory. Your "boss" will be multiple intelligent gamers that will quickly adapt to your tactics and furthermore the groups will change as they come and go online.
Just get a new HD. Why risk _everything_ when you can be in the free and clear for a very well spent $100 and a few hours re-install. You think that guy wouldn't pay $10,000 now to make all his troubles disappear??
It's the unforgivable crime. If that stuff winds up on your drive, smash it, then toss it, and get a new one. Tell whoever that the HD died and you need a new one. Even if you have to put it on a charge card or borrow the money. Don't even mess around with shredders or wipe programs. Why take any chance at all??
YMMV. I had one burn out shortly after purchase. Others have been going for well over 3 years. (lost another due to lightning strike along with other things)
I have 3 Three-Way CFLs and 3 standard CFLs, 2 of which are outside. No, they're not the special "outdoor" ones. I compared those with the standard type and they have the same tolerances but were half the price. Only downside to CFL outdoors is the long warm-up time in cold weather. I'm talking minutes when below freezing. Just have to remember ahead of time.
I'll switch to LED in a heartbeat when they become available in my area. Last I checked, a broken LED is not a HAZMAT spill.
I would expect a comet/meteor strike to look dark and more like a spot, while this is very light and looks like a stripe. (VMC)
Sounds cool, just as long as we don't accidentally create ice-nine while making these "new states of matter".
My biggest problem is that the Steam client itself performs like it was written in QuickBASIC.
I could not agree more. Granted, I have an older system (P4 1.8 GHz) that I use to game. Several months to a year ago, it could launch Steam fairly easily. It took no longer to launch than most of the other apps on the system. It was a matter of seconds.
Then enter the one update. All of a sudden it takes minutes to launch Steam. Seriously, I can double-click the icon then walk downstairs to the kitchen, make a sandwich, get a drink and then walk back upstairs and it's still loading. What happened?? (The other apps are still in the seconds range.) Oh, and sometimes it refuses to close with no explanation, which forces me to go process hunting.
Congress has more power over the economy than the President. Congress writes the spending bills. Congress adds the "pork" or "ear-marks". Congress runs up the deficit. The budget for Federal Agencies is not the Economy.
If you are serious about the Economy, you have to pay attention to your Congressional Representitives, one in the House and one in the Senate.
As far as the PotUS's control of the US economy, the PotUS really only has two controls. First, who he appoints to chair the Federal Reserve Bank. This controls the Prime Interest rates which can influence bank lending and inflation. Second is the PotUS veto power. The weaker of the two, this allows some input to the taxation level, which is how much money the Federal Government allows to have a direct flow into the economy. Higher taxes means less money the people will have to spend. (People spending money IS the economy.)
Once upon a time, the wife asked me to 'shop an old picture to remove someone she wasn't friends with. Turned out pretty good. You can tell something was done, on close inspection, but it looks convincing from a distance. She thought it was good enough to print out and put in a frame in our guest bedroom.
D2 was a master stroke. I hope they can keep the same balance and gameplay. Not sure what to think about the apparent lack of a potion belt. *crosses fingers*
If they change one thing between D2 and D3, I wish it would be the Unique Items. There were a lot of worthless Uniques and Set Items. It was the same in D1. You play and play and finally get a unique drop only to be let down because it's really not that good. In both games you could get magic items better than the uniques, and much easier. Granted, uniques are better in D2 than D1, but I wish they would keep going and make them better still. You know, really make them stand out from the magic items. Make all of them very powerful artifacts.
Yes. In fact, there are a lot of things they likely do not account for. Hot hitters are pitched around and more likely to walk. The ease of a batter getting a hit will change from inning to inning and pitcher to pitcher. Weather conditions. Injury. Pitchers "setting up" the hitter.
I listen to his show. Sometime after that, someone from Apple called him about it. I don't know if they helped him fix it, though. He mentioned that someone from the board of directors was involved, then Mr. Snerdly asked if it was Al Gore. :)
Correction. The estimation of all the gold ever mined in the world would be worth closer to $4 trillion on today's market value. ((2001 estimate of "all the gold ever mined" + modest production for 6 years) x current market value)
I can imagine that earth's "core" may be soft. My reasoning tells me that the "core" is not subject to much gravity. A micro-gravity environment, if you will, due to the relative equal mass in all directions pulling in all directions that balance. Once I think that, I have trouble wrapping my brain around the question: "How great is the pressure?"
If the answer is (relatively speaking) low pressure, then with the estimated high temperature I can imagine a liquid like center.
Was it the Midi-chlorians, Jar Jar Binks, the actors? When did Star Wars jump the shark?. A bonus question: Did George Lucas redeem himself in Episode III?"
When did it "jump"? If I was forced to choose one moment, it would be Midi-chlorians. However, things are not that simple in this case. I'll explain that in a minute. Lucas is a visionary and deserves every dollar he makes, but things started to slide down-hill with Episode 1. Bad dialog, sub-par acting, and plot killers (Midi-chlorians & Jar-Jar) all contributed. So I'd say that the jump started in TPM at the explanation of the Midi-chlorians.
Did Episode III redeem the franchise? In the short term, yes. In the long term, no. This is where things are not that simple. In the short term RotS is a better movie than the first two films, but not by much. I was not expecting Shakespeare, just lightsaber duels and space battles. However, looking at the big picture RotS was doomed due to the events of the prior films. To redeem the franchise, Lucas would have had to re-shoot the first two films or break RotS into two films. The "fall of Anakin" in RotS was not very convincing. Mostly, due to time limitations. Lucas painted himself into a corner and realized he had half of a film in which to do it. So, when I view the films I see a very slow motion "jump the shark" that began early in TPM and ended in RotS.
Bonus Answer: What went wrong with the big picture? IMHO, the story/time-line of Anakin was not as good as it needed to be. He started out way too happy and a bit too young. In TPM, we should have seen a disgruntled slave, about the same age as Amidala, that resents constantly being told what to do and dreams of being free some day instead of the "too happy to help" child. Basically, move his transition to the dark side up a bit in the time-line. Anakin should be on the fence from day one with the memory of his Mother, desires for Amidala, the Jedi Order being extra harsh on him (from Anakin's POV), and Palpatine nudging him to the dark side constantly. Eventually, have Anakin take "The Siegfried Oath" to Palpatine, but take the time to do it right. Build up some pressure over an entire movie or so to the point where Anakin says something to the effect of "I've had it with this stupid Jedi Order!" and decides to go to the dark side. The moment of Anakin's transition in RotS is lame at best. (In fact, so is the Emperor's case against Luke. He had ZERO chance to convert Luke. Luke's attacks on Vader in defense of Lea were more out of Love for Lea than Hate of Vader) I truly believe that a script/plot could be generated where Anakin falls to the dark side in the second movie and the third is entirely Vader slaughtering the Jedi one (or more) at a time.