Yes the broad sweeping changes and massive class/role homogenisation introduced by the TBC expansion have almost killed my enjoyment of the game. First raising the level cap and making all my hard-earned raid gear obselete, and then homogenising DPS to such an extent that the primary healing class (priest) is now also one of the top DPS classes, and the former top DPS classes (mage and rogue) are struggling to contribute anything.
The fact you even bring up the fossil record shows how deeply ignorant and skewed your understanding of evolution really is. Discussing the fossil record in the context of refuting or supporting evolution might have been relevant prior to the 1980s when DNA evidence blew away everything else.
Humans and chimpanzees share around 97% DNA sequence homology. 97% of the approximately 2.85 billion nucleotides that comprise the sum total of our DNA. DNA sequencing is so good we can predict with a high degree of accuracy what country & town your great-great grandfather came from by sampling your DNA. This is on top of the extant fossil record and developmental morphological evidence that has been around for 50+ years.
You also make out that the fossil record is somehow incomplete - it's not. it hasn't been for decades. as for asking for links to evidence for evolution - man that is so profoundly ignorant I'm start to believe you're an evolutionary biologist out trolling cause seriously, it's hard to believe anyone could be this stupid. How about just reading the wikipedia entry? Even if you only read 1 level of links deep from that page, you'll be significantly better off; not that I think you have any real interest in getting to the facts; i know a religious agenda when i smell one.
Choosing not to *believe* in evolution cause you *choose* to believe in fairies, or aliens, or a storybook written by a bunch of jewish & roman guys a couple of thousand years ago I have no problem with. I'll respect your belief, however ridiculous i may find it. Just keep the hell away from discussing things that thousands of really smart, hard-working people have literally spent their working lives researching until you've obtained the level of academic knowledge required to discuss it intelligently and factually. Neither of which you have achieved so far.
>>> Macro and micro evolution is very real. the differences are profound. so far to date, we have only found evidence of micro evolution and even though bacteria evolve at a much higher rate, they don't produce new species of bacteria.
I have a PhD in Biochemistry/Molecular biology and you don't know what the hell you're talking about. New species of bacteria are created on a daily basis all around the world for research & industrial purposes; we just don't assign new species names to them, because 'species', to a scientist, implies it has arisen by natural evolution.
Of all the things that man has discovered through the scientific method, none of them is more certain than Evolution - it is supported by so many different techniques and observations that on evidence, you'd be better off trying to discredit the existence of gravity than discredit evolution. That's why we teach it in schools; it's accepted fact.
The simple fact is that a majority of scientists now accept that human-induced climate change is indeed occurring. Being a card-carrying PhD qualified scientist myself I can assure you that scientists as a community are not easily persuaded. There is so much data out there now from so many disparate sources that human activity *is* altering the global climate.
Given how much the "traditional" energy industries stand to lose from a shift to less polluting energy generation it's really no surprise to me that we're hearing a few voices of dissent with spurious claims - it's like when science discovered that the world was flat and the predominantly religious outcry that ensued. History shows that science will always win out in the end; the question is when and in what state will the global environment be in when it is universally agreed.
I'm an Australian living in the UK, and for sure there are still some Imperial hangovers here in the areas you mention. Australia is fully metric-ised, although you will still find the occasional reference to heights and weights in feet & stones, mainly from the older generation.
And while the UK may still have mile signs on the road and some people (again mainly older people) measure their height and weight using the old system, everything else is metric. It's just "cuter" to say "he's 6ft tall", rather than 180cm.
Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. The metric system is clearly technically superior, and clearly more widely accepted. It takes all of about a week to start thinking in metric units instead of imperial if you put your mind to it... holding out on the imperial system just for the sake of it is just... lazy/stupid, and well-deserving of the ridicule IMO. I mean, every other country managed to make the conversion, so what's the problem...?
The whole point of the metric system was to make these conversions easy. 1 litre of water == 1000 cubic centimeters, or the volume of a box, 10cm x 10cm x 10cm. Hardly a challenging conversion.
Perhaps a more practical example? How long will it take me to walk the 5km into town given that I walk at 5km/hour? Simple.
i've been using OO as my main office package for years now, what you're saying just isn't true. I've had maybe 5 OO crashes in 3 years now, usually when using the betas or pre-releases I might add. Frankly, I think you're just a pro-Microsoft troll.
In my experience the only time OO gets it wrong is when the original word documents contain manual margin-tab-space formatting and other similar word processor newbie formatting. If the word documents use styles for formatting, as they should, there is no problem. I bet if your word docs look screwy in OO, chances are it's the naive user formatting that's the problem, not OO.
Considering the price difference of OO and its generally high quality (i wrote my 100K word PhD thesis on it with all manner of embedded objects, formulae, tables of contents, etc - *zero* issues), I think a little effort to (re-)train users on how to format documents correctly is a small price to pay.
as far as i know, carrots are not so much high in vitamin A as they are in retinol, vitamin A's direct precursor (vit A is formed from 2 molcules of retinol). too much vitamin A is bad, i don't believe retinol suffers the same problem.
those passages you quoted are really quite funny in the context of this little exchange, eg Samuel Adams used to be a tax collector, or aristotle being the progenitor of formal logic when your arguments are so bereft of it, lol. give me some more quotes, i beg you.
maybe you have travelled about more than me, but having spent the last 14 years as a professional scientist who routinely travels to overseas conferences, speaks 3 languages, and has taught students at local and overseas universities, i doubt it, just as surely as i doubt you have any real intellect or wisdom other than what's been drilled into you in military grunt school.
Having spent eleven years in this nation's military
it was already clear that you were a closed-minded dumbass (who regurgitates quotes he learnt in american history class no less), now at least i know why. i also find it amusing that you strongly criticise the provision of services by government and and yet are part of one of the biggest government-subsidised services - the military/national defense (or in the US' case, national attack). moron!
btw, referencing totally inappropriate quotes from arbitrary historical figures just to make a point just makes you look silly and your histrionic and incohesive scrawlings sillier still. i commend you on your stupidity; at least you're trying.
i would call myself a democratic socialist, which means i feel it is the responsibility of government to provide basic services and civil infrastructure, including health care, education, law & enforcement, libraries, schools, some level of social welfare, etc. this stems from the belief that a well-educated, healthy population ultimately benefits everyone and disadvantages noone - everyone really does start off on an equal footing, and are not disadvantaged by race, religion, parental income, etc. Right-wing/capitalist economies often have poor civil infrastructure, high crime rates, and lots of poor/homeless people, all of which are well evident in the US.
That is pure unadulterated Communism. It's been tried before, on a grand scale and with Draconian enforcement. It failed miserably
ever heard of china? they might be opening their markets but they are still communist.
all of scandinavia and many central-western countries are socialist in nature -- i lived in denmark for 6 months - the place is clean, roads and public transport are excellent, education and health care are free, crime rates are low, and homeless people non-existant. compare the centre of say, copenhagen with say, soma in san francisco and SF comes out looking like a hovel. but i'm sure you've never been anywhere so really don't know half of what you're talking about.
Have a nice day, comrade, with love from a successful capitalist who has all the things you do not: honesty, integrity, and the will to mind my own fucking business when it comes to someone else's achievements.
what does honesty and integrity have to do with the philosophy of government? idiot!
i don't care how much money people make, as long as the larger population is well cared for and as long as everyone gets a fair go to "make it".
besides, you still pay tax in the US btw, *you* just don't get any direct benefits. maybe you should aim the torrent of shit you write at your local member to argue to eliminate tax entirely, since you currently get nothing for it (or are oblivious to it, or don't want it).
you sir, should get yourself out and travel around a bit. it will open your mind.
yes, i may be left-leaning, but you're obviously a closed-minded, right-wing, bottle-fed capitalist whose idea of social responsibility is getting his pay cheque on time. you need to get yourself a decent dictionary and look up the words "semantic", "context", and "comprehension". you see words and become inflamed without understanding precisely what is being really being said. it is pointless arguing with such reactionary people. i didn't actually say a lot of what you assumed i was trying to say. i do however apologise for my use of occasionally colourful language; i just can't help myself sometimes.
Oh, but I forgot, you're on their side, aren't you? Be afraid. You deserve it.
lol. as a scientist with a PhD, i'm on the side of impartiality, justice, and pragmatism. i just want you to realise that america is experiencing its current level of terrorism and world embarrassment as a consequence of its own actions, and these largely stem from having the same attitude as the one that you yourself expoused earlier in this thread. that is, you can't go around fucking with other people and other people's countries and not expect to get fucked back every now and again as a result. of course this is wildly obvious to everyone who is not fed US propaganda, the majority of the population who believe everything they hear on CNN because they can't be bothered to investigate the facts still believe that america can do no wrong (hi-five!). it's not true.
as for being afraid - the current american administration has many things in common with late 1930s nazi germany - the unilateralism, the propaganda, the speeches, all very similar. don't believe me? read a little on pre-WW2 germany. so yeah, i think many people are afraid of the current american administration - majorly right-wing, headstrong, and belligerent, and in control of a military worth more than the next top 20 militaries in the world. you should be afraid too.
debian/RMS zealots are the worst enemies that linux has. the GPL and the open source movement may be the best thing that has happened to the IT industry since the invention of the personal computer, but a religious adherence to the notion that *all* software *must* be free as well as open source does linux more harm than good.
free software zealots are linux's greatest enemy, not microsoft. by marginalising itself further from the linux mainstream, debian is tacitly endorsing this religious fervour, to everyone's detriment. extremist measures never get you anywhere, just ask bin laden.
no wonder america is the target of terrorism - they attack countries without evidence or justifiable reason (just make up the reasons afterwards - no problem! our people will swallow it!!), they overthrow democratically elected leaders, and now, they develop weapons in space.
and america wonders why it is so hated... the current american administration is like a petulant boys club with no accountability.
...and if you criticise america on slashdot then expect to be moderated as flamebait. it is *exactly* this head in the sand approach to everything even remotely critical of america that gets up everyone's nose.
maybe if another plane crashes into a building someone in the US administration with sense will come to realise that the rising anti-US sentiment is due to the US's interventionist/imperialist approach to foreign policy.
bollocks. you have no evidence for any of that. the reason there has been no major war amongst 1st world nations in the last 70 years is due to the MAD principle -- mutually-assured destruction, ie: nukes.
the US makes up its own rules as it goes along, using propaganda and fear to sell its own version of the truth.
it would be more like me sitting outside your house with a truck-mounted M60 trained on your lounge room window. try telling me that wouldn't make you uncomfortable if not downright belligerent.
it is unlikely that the US would attempt to territorially conquer any major country in the foreseeable future because of the MAD principle -- mutually-assured destruction.
you also neglect to note that the modus operandi of the US is to "conquer" countries by installing puppet governements or overthrowing democratically-elected leaders and the like.
a very relevant example: overthrowing the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh and installing the shah in iran, giving saddam his first chemical and biological weapons to fight the shah when he got a bit too feisty, only to then invade saddam for supposdly having the very same weapons the US taught him to make 2 decades previously.
the US have been, and continue to be arseholes when it comes to interfering in world politics, always to its advantage. the people of the US are too easily subverted by government propaganda to be held to be truly accountable.
Yes, but it's the US that has changed, not the allies. When all your friends suddenly stop liking and trusting you, the chances are that it's you that's the problem, not your friends!
spot on. if only the US administration would pull its head out of its arse and start playing like a *world* citizen instead of petulant child with big toys.
the US paid off all the smaller/3rd world countries for their support... the "coalition of the (un)willing" - that is - those countries who actually sent troops to the war - were the US, england, and australia. the payoff for australian involvement (read: vote of support) was the recent "free trade" agreement, which, as usual, was not about actually freeing trade between aust and the US at all.
i think that if you scratch the surface you'll find that there is now a deep-seated distrust of the US and its motives more than has ever existed up to this point as a result of what happened with the iraq war over (nonexistent) WMDs. the US has played its hand as the petulant playground bully; it has to now live with the consequences.
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Yes the broad sweeping changes and massive class/role homogenisation introduced by the TBC expansion have almost killed my enjoyment of the game. First raising the level cap and making all my hard-earned raid gear obselete, and then homogenising DPS to such an extent that the primary healing class (priest) is now also one of the top DPS classes, and the former top DPS classes (mage and rogue) are struggling to contribute anything.
...so please also report measurements in the metric system for those of us who live in more advanced countries. thank you.
The fact you even bring up the fossil record shows how deeply ignorant and skewed your understanding of evolution really is. Discussing the fossil record in the context of refuting or supporting evolution might have been relevant prior to the 1980s when DNA evidence blew away everything else.
Humans and chimpanzees share around 97% DNA sequence homology. 97% of the approximately 2.85 billion nucleotides that comprise the sum total of our DNA. DNA sequencing is so good we can predict with a high degree of accuracy what country & town your great-great grandfather came from by sampling your DNA. This is on top of the extant fossil record and developmental morphological evidence that has been around for 50+ years.
You also make out that the fossil record is somehow incomplete - it's not. it hasn't been for decades. as for asking for links to evidence for evolution - man that is so profoundly ignorant I'm start to believe you're an evolutionary biologist out trolling cause seriously, it's hard to believe anyone could be this stupid. How about just reading the wikipedia entry? Even if you only read 1 level of links deep from that page, you'll be significantly better off; not that I think you have any real interest in getting to the facts; i know a religious agenda when i smell one.
Choosing not to *believe* in evolution cause you *choose* to believe in fairies, or aliens, or a storybook written by a bunch of jewish & roman guys a couple of thousand years ago I have no problem with. I'll respect your belief, however ridiculous i may find it. Just keep the hell away from discussing things that thousands of really smart, hard-working people have literally spent their working lives researching until you've obtained the level of academic knowledge required to discuss it intelligently and factually. Neither of which you have achieved so far.
>>>
Macro and micro evolution is very real. the differences are profound. so far to date, we have only found evidence of micro evolution and even though bacteria evolve at a much higher rate, they don't produce new species of bacteria.
I have a PhD in Biochemistry/Molecular biology and you don't know what the hell you're talking about. New species of bacteria are created on a daily basis all around the world for research & industrial purposes; we just don't assign new species names to them, because 'species', to a scientist, implies it has arisen by natural evolution.
Of all the things that man has discovered through the scientific method, none of them is more certain than Evolution - it is supported by so many different techniques and observations that on evidence, you'd be better off trying to discredit the existence of gravity than discredit evolution. That's why we teach it in schools; it's accepted fact.
The simple fact is that a majority of scientists now accept that human-induced climate change is indeed occurring. Being a card-carrying PhD qualified scientist myself I can assure you that scientists as a community are not easily persuaded. There is so much data out there now from so many disparate sources that human activity *is* altering the global climate.
Given how much the "traditional" energy industries stand to lose from a shift to less polluting energy generation it's really no surprise to me that we're hearing a few voices of dissent with spurious claims - it's like when science discovered that the world was flat and the predominantly religious outcry that ensued. History shows that science will always win out in the end; the question is when and in what state will the global environment be in when it is universally agreed.
> Much harder than calculating how long it will take to walk 3 miles into town, given that you walk 3 miles per hour?
My point exactly. Why aren't you using the metric system again?
I'm an Australian living in the UK, and for sure there are still some Imperial hangovers here in the areas you mention. Australia is fully metric-ised, although you will still find the occasional reference to heights and weights in feet & stones, mainly from the older generation.
And while the UK may still have mile signs on the road and some people (again mainly older people) measure their height and weight using the old system, everything else is metric. It's just "cuter" to say "he's 6ft tall", rather than 180cm.
Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. The metric system is clearly technically superior, and clearly more widely accepted. It takes all of about a week to start thinking in metric units instead of imperial if you put your mind to it... holding out on the imperial system just for the sake of it is just... lazy/stupid, and well-deserving of the ridicule IMO. I mean, every other country managed to make the conversion, so what's the problem...?
The whole point of the metric system was to make these conversions easy. 1 litre of water == 1000 cubic centimeters, or the volume of a box, 10cm x 10cm x 10cm. Hardly a challenging conversion.
Perhaps a more practical example? How long will it take me to walk the 5km into town given that I walk at 5km/hour? Simple.
i've been using OO as my main office package for years now, what you're saying just isn't true. I've had maybe 5 OO crashes in 3 years now, usually when using the betas or pre-releases I might add. Frankly, I think you're just a pro-Microsoft troll.
In my experience the only time OO gets it wrong is when the original word documents contain manual margin-tab-space formatting and other similar word processor newbie formatting. If the word documents use styles for formatting, as they should, there is no problem. I bet if your word docs look screwy in OO, chances are it's the naive user formatting that's the problem, not OO.
Considering the price difference of OO and its generally high quality (i wrote my 100K word PhD thesis on it with all manner of embedded objects, formulae, tables of contents, etc - *zero* issues), I think a little effort to (re-)train users on how to format documents correctly is a small price to pay.
as far as i know, carrots are not so much high in vitamin A as they are in retinol, vitamin A's direct precursor (vit A is formed from 2 molcules of retinol). too much vitamin A is bad, i don't believe retinol suffers the same problem.
i've been playing the linux demo for a couple of weeks... plays perfectly, exactly as it should.
woohoo! excellent game (onslaught -- haven't played anything else yet, lol).
those passages you quoted are really quite funny in the context of this little exchange, eg Samuel Adams used to be a tax collector, or aristotle being the progenitor of formal logic when your arguments are so bereft of it, lol. give me some more quotes, i beg you.
maybe you have travelled about more than me, but having spent the last 14 years as a professional scientist who routinely travels to overseas conferences, speaks 3 languages, and has taught students at local and overseas universities, i doubt it, just as surely as i doubt you have any real intellect or wisdom other than what's been drilled into you in military grunt school.
Having spent eleven years in this nation's military
it was already clear that you were a closed-minded dumbass (who regurgitates quotes he learnt in american history class no less), now at least i know why. i also find it amusing that you strongly criticise the provision of services by government and and yet are part of one of the biggest government-subsidised services - the military/national defense (or in the US' case, national attack). moron!
btw, referencing totally inappropriate quotes from arbitrary historical figures just to make a point just makes you look silly and your histrionic and incohesive scrawlings sillier still. i commend you on your stupidity; at least you're trying.
i would call myself a democratic socialist, which means i feel it is the responsibility of government to provide basic services and civil infrastructure, including health care, education, law & enforcement, libraries, schools, some level of social welfare, etc. this stems from the belief that a well-educated, healthy population ultimately benefits everyone and disadvantages noone - everyone really does start off on an equal footing, and are not disadvantaged by race, religion, parental income, etc. Right-wing/capitalist economies often have poor civil infrastructure, high crime rates, and lots of poor/homeless people, all of which are well evident in the US.
That is pure unadulterated Communism. It's been tried before, on a grand scale and with Draconian enforcement. It failed miserably
ever heard of china? they might be opening their markets but they are still communist.
all of scandinavia and many central-western countries are socialist in nature -- i lived in denmark for 6 months - the place is clean, roads and public transport are excellent, education and health care are free, crime rates are low, and homeless people non-existant. compare the centre of say, copenhagen with say, soma in san francisco and SF comes out looking like a hovel. but i'm sure you've never been anywhere so really don't know half of what you're talking about.
Have a nice day, comrade, with love from a successful capitalist who has all the things you do not: honesty, integrity, and the will to mind my own fucking business when it comes to someone else's achievements.
what does honesty and integrity have to do with the philosophy of government? idiot!
i don't care how much money people make, as long as the larger population is well cared for and as long as everyone gets a fair go to "make it".
besides, you still pay tax in the US btw, *you* just don't get any direct benefits. maybe you should aim the torrent of shit you write at your local member to argue to eliminate tax entirely, since you currently get nothing for it (or are oblivious to it, or don't want it).
you sir, should get yourself out and travel around a bit. it will open your mind.
is this article written by the half-life2 people to attempt to justify another 6 month wait? i wanna play it now damnit!
yes, i may be left-leaning, but you're obviously a closed-minded, right-wing, bottle-fed capitalist whose idea of social responsibility is getting his pay cheque on time. you need to get yourself a decent dictionary and look up the words "semantic", "context", and "comprehension". you see words and become inflamed without understanding precisely what is being really being said. it is pointless arguing with such reactionary people. i didn't actually say a lot of what you assumed i was trying to say. i do however apologise for my use of occasionally colourful language; i just can't help myself sometimes.
in any case, have a nice day.
Oh, but I forgot, you're on their side, aren't you? Be afraid. You deserve it.
lol. as a scientist with a PhD, i'm on the side of impartiality, justice, and pragmatism. i just want you to realise that america is experiencing its current level of terrorism and world embarrassment as a consequence of its own actions, and these largely stem from having the same attitude as the one that you yourself expoused earlier in this thread. that is, you can't go around fucking with other people and other people's countries and not expect to get fucked back every now and again as a result. of course this is wildly obvious to everyone who is not fed US propaganda, the majority of the population who believe everything they hear on CNN because they can't be bothered to investigate the facts still believe that america can do no wrong (hi-five!). it's not true.
as for being afraid - the current american administration has many things in common with late 1930s nazi germany - the unilateralism, the propaganda, the speeches, all very similar. don't believe me? read a little on pre-WW2 germany. so yeah, i think many people are afraid of the current american administration - majorly right-wing, headstrong, and belligerent, and in control of a military worth more than the next top 20 militaries in the world. you should be afraid too.
debian/RMS zealots are the worst enemies that linux has. the GPL and the open source movement may be the best thing that has happened to the IT industry since the invention of the personal computer, but a religious adherence to the notion that *all* software *must* be free as well as open source does linux more harm than good.
free software zealots are linux's greatest enemy, not microsoft. by marginalising itself further from the linux mainstream, debian is tacitly endorsing this religious fervour, to everyone's detriment. extremist measures never get you anywhere, just ask bin laden.
Good. I want the U.S. to do things to its advantage, since I am a U.S. citizen.
well, you shouldn't be too surprised when people start flying planes into your buildings in response to being fucked in the arse by a selfish bully.
do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
maybe if another plane crashes into a building someone in the US administration with sense will come to realise that the rising anti-US sentiment is due to the US's interventionist/imperialist approach to foreign policy.
ffs american
bollocks. you have no evidence for any of that. the reason there has been no major war amongst 1st world nations in the last 70 years is due to the MAD principle -- mutually-assured destruction, ie: nukes.
the US makes up its own rules as it goes along, using propaganda and fear to sell its own version of the truth.
i mean:
the people of the US are too easily subverted by its government's propaganda to hold the government to be truly accountable.
it would be more like me sitting outside your house with a truck-mounted M60 trained on your lounge room window. try telling me that wouldn't make you uncomfortable if not downright belligerent.
it is unlikely that the US would attempt to territorially conquer any major country in the foreseeable future because of the MAD principle -- mutually-assured destruction.
you also neglect to note that the modus operandi of the US is to "conquer" countries by installing puppet governements or overthrowing democratically-elected leaders and the like.
a very relevant example: overthrowing the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh and installing the shah in iran, giving saddam his first chemical and biological weapons to fight the shah when he got a bit too feisty, only to then invade saddam for supposdly having the very same weapons the US taught him to make 2 decades previously.
the US have been, and continue to be arseholes when it comes to interfering in world politics, always to its advantage. the people of the US are too easily subverted by government propaganda to be held to be truly accountable.
Yes, but it's the US that has changed, not the allies. When all your friends suddenly stop liking and trusting you, the chances are that it's you that's the problem, not your friends!
spot on. if only the US administration would pull its head out of its arse and start playing like a *world* citizen instead of petulant child with big toys.
the US paid off all the smaller/3rd world countries for their support... the "coalition of the (un)willing" - that is - those countries who actually sent troops to the war - were the US, england, and australia. the payoff for australian involvement (read: vote of support) was the recent "free trade" agreement, which, as usual, was not about actually freeing trade between aust and the US at all.
i think that if you scratch the surface you'll find that there is now a deep-seated distrust of the US and its motives more than has ever existed up to this point as a result of what happened with the iraq war over (nonexistent) WMDs. the US has played its hand as the petulant playground bully; it has to now live with the consequences.