Re:Shard of glass in my delicious pie! *gruff*
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Mario AI Competition
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Ok ok, I was too quick to post. I get it *wanders off to corder with both feet firmly lodged in mouth*
Luckily, I never cared much about making an ass of myself, "thinking before speaking is like wiping your ass before you.. well, you get the idea" and all. So I'll just ask and hope I get an answer and not a painful reaming.
How do I launch the network agent? I've tried everything I can find here but at best it launches the game in keyboard control mode. Do I just suck? Should it be blatantly obvious how to get the tcp server up and running..?
Re:Shard of glass in my delicious pie! *gruff*
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Mario AI Competition
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Uuuh! Awesome! Seriously, how the hell did I not see that? It's not like that site is all that content heavy. o_O
I might just suffer from some sort of sneaky invisible ninja selective blindness but I can't seem to find any info on this TCP interface. Curse you, sneaky invisible ninja selective blindness!
Re:Shard of glass in my delicious pie! *gruff*
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Mario AI Competition
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Thanks for the friendly replies! ^^
Just to make one thing clear though, I'm not running for 1st place here. I just want to tinker around with this to see if I can make Mario survive any significant distance at all.
I'm thinking I might make a genetic algorithm type thing in which each string of "DNA" contains conditions and reactions. Like, conditions might be "blocking tile in position 1.0 (relative), no blocking tile in position 1.1" and the reaction would be "tap jump,press forward". Of course, represented as much as possible in a format that can easily and freely be mutated to change/add to/remove from condition/event-sets, add a new condition/event-set or remove one. Though, even if I could implement something like that smoothly enough to not get locked in some local maxima it would take a lot more than a week or two to both develop and let the evolution run it's course.
Re:Shard of glass in my delicious pie! *gruff*
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Mario AI Competition
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HAH! I also program loads of VB6 stuff! All your base, Lucy!
Anyways.. Yes, I know php isn't a compiled language. Yes, I know I'm a php scripter who enjoys php scripting. Does the fact that php is a language I enjoy immensely as a recreational platform for doing things like distributed processing MD5 brute forcing, the classic mona lisa genetic algorithm thingie and tic-tac-toe AI crap as well as making CMS/gallery/forum-systems for friends, a better helpdesk-system for work, a gatekeeper to merge several separate systems at work into one site with AD authentication, etc. exclude the possibility of me not being a pathetic script kiddie who thinks he's 1337? (yes, I know I wrote "n00b", zeros and all. my bad)
I did mention, did I not, that I have some experience with c/c++? I've done a ton of fun stuff in QBASIC back when I didn't know any better and I still use VB6 now and then because it's simplicity make it pretty much perfect for quick, ugly proof-of-concept/test/hobby project stuff. I've also tinkered enough with Delphi to know my way around that syntax fairly well and at least VB.Net is easy enough that if I was making software for other people, I'd jump from VB6 to VB.net to at least not be lagging a decade and a half behind.
Offtopic:I remember back in school.. One of my friends who (reads Linux conf files for a hobby) and I decided to write a chat program to soothe our lack of stimulating activities (we were in school, after all). He started writing his client in c++ on a terminal, I used VB6. Somewhat long story short, my program was in a perfectly usable state before he had the gui working proplerly and the program connecting to my server. Right tools for the right job and so on. ^^
Feel free to piss on my parade all you want. I really don't care (despite the stupidly long reply. I'm bored, ok?). I know that if I want to program Java, I will program Java. Obviously nowhere near as well as a seasoned Java developer but my general programming (yes, that would include simple scripting) knowledge (and Google) is enough to let me tackle most new languages fairly well for a noob.
Re:I like anal sex, you insensitive clod
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Mario AI Competition
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Just so happens, my girlfriend and I have been together and lived with each other for two years now. She might be lying but considering
A. She's hot as hell
B. I'm not exactly Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt
C. I don't have a very deep wallet =(
I'm guessing my 16cm, all-in-all pretty average self somehow manages to keep her happy ^^,
Oh, btw.. From what I know both from personal experience and what friends of both genders tell me, neither the size nor the speed matter all that much without stability, and that often comes down to skill more than tools.;)
Shard of glass in my delicious pie! *gruff*
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Mario AI Competition
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First thought: "WOAH, this seems awesome! Can't wait to see what kind of crazy awesome stuff people come up with! Perhaps something like Air Man versus Genetic Algorithm?"
Second though: "Hmm.. Emulating keypresses is easy as cake, but I wonder how their game passes info about Mario's environment to the controller? After all, this is a contest of skill and creativity, so there should be a system in place to allow code monkeys and 1337 programmers to contribute, regardless of their tools of choice."
Still thinking: "Java only? What the hell!? I don't like Java! Ok, so I know Java probably doesn't suck as much as the purist c anti-Java crowd would have me believe, but I still think it's bloatware compared to c/c++ or even.Net stuff and I'm still kind of stuck on the ol' saying "Claiming Java is good because it works on all OS' is like claiming anal sex is good because it works on all genders.". I do ok for a n00b c/c++ programmer, I can monkey my way through anything with c/Pascal or BASIC syntax and an IDE, I'm an effin wiz at php, but of course this otherwise awesome competition has to be Java-only. For the love of all that is retro, why isn't this "heavily modded version" of the game made with an interface that would let me talk to it with good old QBASIC or c (which would be time appropriate ) or any other language for that matter!?
This challenge is still too tempting for me to just write a Flamebait-only reply though.. Could any of you brilliant, experienced guys point me in the direction of a Java dev tool (compiler, IDE, etc.) that is appropriate for someone who runs Windows on their main machine and has little to no experience doing Java development? I could really need something that is at least simple to set up and use so all I have to wrestle with is getting used to the actual language.
The problem for me isn't censoring the internet per se, but rather that censorship often branches into the realms of legal (but not necessarily attractive to the majority of people - think fetish sites for example) activity and can crush freedom of speech.
All too true, I'm afraid. Not that I'd cry over a few blocked fetish sites in particular but if I want to learn how to make a hydrogen fuel cell, or hell, how to make a bomb, I want that info to be online and as easily accessible as any cookie recipe. Yes, bombs are bad. Does that mean that all us geeky MacGyver fans are terrorists who should be surveilled and controlled?
So, what do you want? A lawless place with its inherent risks and joys, or a gated community that forces you to leave the toilet seat down, always say please and thankyou, and kicks you out if you walk on the grass? Give me the lawless any day.
Slashdotters seem to be under the impression that it's one or the other, dictatorship or anarchy. Well it's not! Speeding or driving while intoxicated is hardly more legal than watching child porn and yet we don't have special tire-slashing patrols ensuring that no drunk driving or speeding can happen. Ok, car-related analogy (or whatever that was) done. My point is, rules can be enforced in cyberspace as much as in meatspace (yes, I know we all hate that word). In meatspace though, there are strict rules on how rules can and should be enforced. The law doesn't allow cops to go around giving people preemptive beatings to remind us they are there. Similarly, howstuffworks.com, textfiles.com, freakforum.nu (norwegian, retarded),/. and other such pages should never be blocked because I might find info there that I might use to build a bomb.
If I do, however, build a bomb and blow up a school and the police make a lawful arrest and get a by-the-book, fair warrant for my computer gear (and logs, where possible).. Sure, my computer can count as evidence (if I'm dumb enough to leave traces on it) every bit as much as if I had planned the attack with pen-and-paper and the cops found that. What they absolutely can't do is regulate and moderate the entire net so I can't find info that isn't in itself illegal but might help me make something that actually is. That would be like out-lawing toothbrushes because one could use them to make a shiv.
The nature of it doesn't change just because it's been in place a long time. It's a way of silencing minority views.
I fail to see your point. Isn't democracy in it self a way of silencing minority views? If less than 5% of the population agree with you enough to vote for your party, you shouldn't really be allowed to control anything at all. You're representing a pretty insignificant minority, not the general public.
Government efficiency and liberty of the population could generally be considered mutually exclusive. Give me small inefficient governments any day.
I'll probably be modded -1 Flamebait or something for this, but it's got to be said. People like you are gravel in the gears. Do you seriously think everyone with an opinion should have the right to directly influence things? Democracy is (or should be) "majority rules", not "majority tries to rule but tiny minority interest groups keep pissing on their parades and preventing them from getting any work done".
Sorry if I completely failed to understand your point. I'd rather have a government that does it's very best to steer the country in the direction the general mass of the people is pushing, instead of a government that goes absolutely nowhere because it tries to cater to everyones needs at the same time!
I'm not even sure you are the most deserving candidate for my reply but I am getting so fucking sick of all this incredible stupidity, I just hit the very first reply button I could find.
Ok, so you're entitled to your own opinion. When your wife breaks her neck and becomes a vegetable for the rest of her (then) miserable existence? Sure, she can refuse stem cell treatment, be my guest! When your mother gets Alzheimers and starts to slip away from you, painfully aware of what is happening every time she has a somewhat lucid moments? Take custody of your mother so you can make sure she doesn't get any of that fishy medical treatment you in your infinite wisdom have decided is evil.
But when the doctors one day tell me they can cure my type 1 Diabetes..? If my (as of yet to be conceived) kids inherit this crap defect from me, and the medical technology offers to fix it..? If someone can heal my grandfather's memory, or my uncle's broken back?
Consider this a fair warning: You better not be standing in my way because you believe, contrary to anything science tells us, that using a tiny clump of cells (that would otherwise be discarded as trash) to fix the broken parts of the people I love, is immoral. If you do, I will, come the day, remove you and your detestable, twisted view on moral and ethics with my own two hands.
I don't know when, exactly, a fetus should be considered human. Given that human children, according to the Mirror Test, don't start showing signs of self-awareness and consciousness before roughly the age of 1,5 years, I willingly bet my soul (should such a thing exist, if not, my brain/liver/heart/whatever would suffice as a replacement) that a clump of cells not even visible to the bare eye does not possess anything remotely close to consciousness!
Also, there is a lot of promising non-embryonic stem-cell research going on. Why on earth are people against this? A cell taken from my spinal fluid, treated chemically so it can mature into nerve or muscle tissue only, will allow doctors to fix my back/neck should I break it, my heart should I have a heart attack and get scar tissue, my brain should I get a stroke or Alzheimers... Though, I guess, when they've managed to regress a cell so far back that it has the same potential as an embryonic stem-cell, the same set of made up "rules" apply.
Scientific bottom line is, an 18 months old toddler is just barely starting to grasp the idea of Self and Them and Us (self-awareness and empathy). A 6 week old fetus doesn't even have a brain. In fact, if you scratch yourself good, you probably have more skin cells left under your fingernails than a 6 week old fetus consists of! So...
An abortion is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
A "morning after" abortion pill is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Going on the pill is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Using a condom is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Abstaining from sex can be a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Sterilization is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Hell, menstruating instead of constantly being pregnant from age 12 to 45 is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists)!
Are you seriously saying that everyone is a mass murderer? Including the Pope?! I'm not much of a religious guy myself but not even I would go so far as to claim that!
That said, I never claimed I was not overweight. When I reach my target body fat percentage I will be somewhere in the mid-twenties for BMI. I apologize if I gave the impression that I was bragging, I assure you that this is not the case. At 20% body fat, though, I do happily leave the house.:)
Never accused you of bragging either, but in the middle of my own braggy rant I discovered that you have a good bit more lean body mass than I do, soo..
Ok, so I might just have overdone the part of not going outside, heh. My point was that at 16-17% bodyfat I did not feel comfortable at all because I knew people who saw me in a t-shirt would think I was out of shape (which I was). The leap from that to 20% is such that though I'd of course go outside, I'd never ever feel good about my apprearance. Of course, at BMI=30 and 20% bodyfat I assume you look pretty buffed as opposed to someone having the same BMI and 25-30% bodyfat. So go outside and enjoy summer to it's fullest! I know I'm trying hard to do just that, no matter how unhappy I am with my belly even at ~11% bodyfat. ^^
Oh, and on the actual topic of the story. =P The flu kills people. Infants, elderly, fat and others already weakened by some factor or other. Whatever the fatties preaching tolerance towards "their kind" say, having a BMI of >40 is not, cannot be healthy no matter how you look at it. With a disease which has the potensial of killing you if your immune system/heart/lungs ain't working as it should, it isn't exactly a groundbreaking discovery that all else being equal, fatties have a greater chance of dying from the flu.
Heh, I get a bit.. ranty when people are discussing stuff like this. I don't think I was accusing you of being unable to improve yourself. If that part was aimed at anyone in particular, it'd be poor syousef who is completely unable to lose weight and be healthy, even though his inability to do so means his wife who he loves will be left alone for 30 years after he shuffles (or rather, rolls) off this mortal coil.
Yeah we're also talking about bodies that work very differently.
Where do you get the idea that your body and mine, the day we were born, worked so very differently? Knowing how the body loves to store excess energy as fat, how the stomach expands to accommodate whatever amount of food one stuffs into it, and how the carb-rich foods that permeate every grocery store everywhere makes one feel full for a total of 15-30 minutes before cravings start again... Are you going to tell me your out-of-this-world hunger pangs that no one is equipped to comprehend but you absolutely could not be the result of a life of bad nutrition? If the cycle of eating too much (expanding the stomach) and eating poorly (creating constant hunger, and fat storage) started when you were 3 years old, I feel sorry for you and can easily see how it could be a difficult cycle to break out of. Also, sugar is in fact addictive, just in case someone didn't know already.
Have you taken a look at the stats? We're not just talking about edge cases. THAT is the problem. THAT is why obesity itself is being called an epidemic. Don't let facts distract your ranting though.
Which are these facts you speak of? Do you have a working knowledge of genetics? If there was in fact a selection of mutations that removed all hope of being slim and healthy, I'd back off and bow my head in condolences to the sufferers. However:
1.Being overweight is not healthy. Statistically, healthy equals sexually attractive. Honestly.. I can't think of a great many things more off-putting (sexually) than an overweight woman both because of the appearance, instinctive attention to health issues and disgust at the lifestyle she most likely continues to cultivate. Ergo, these fantasy genes that makes one overweight beyond hope would not have any chance of suddenly spreading throughout the gene pool. 2.Even if a mutation appeared that somehow made the recipient hopelessly fat AND ragingly sexually attractive, it would take that mutation a lot longer than 2-3 generations to spread to 1/4 of the 300 million Americans alive today!
The way I see it, from a logical point of view, there is no way 78 million Americans can get away with blaming genetics. Yes, there will always be the odd case, but what is your reason for believing that a mutation causing morbid obesity would occur more often and spread more efficiently than one causing extra limbs, missing limbs, or whatever else would give you an obvious disadvantage in the reproductive "arms race"? (not comparing you to someone missing a limb, this is a theoretical comparison between existing mutations and the "fat beyond help"-gene you claim exists)
Your car analogy stinks. Blah blah
Again, the point I am trying to get across is that in normal people, the basal metabolic rate (relative to bodyweight/body composition) varies at most 5% either way. Again, some people, for example, have thyroid problems but this is easily diagnosed and treated. The fact stands that when it comes to metabolism there is very little variation within the norm, and most all those who genetically or because of disease or accidents fall outside the norm are diagnosed and treated. So where is your evidence supporting this condition where no matter what one eats, one gains weight despite this being impossible? Where is the genetic marker responsible for making people pile on lard no matter how hard these poor, poor people work? One would think that with 78 million obese people to treat, there would be a lot of money flowing into finding this malfunctioning gene and creating and selling a cure for fatness.
I'll tell you why, and I hope you don't get even more provoked than you already are (not trying to provoke anger, rather discussion and thought). The vast majority of overweight people, whether they have 5kg too much or 150kg, are the way they are because they ingest more calo
First of all, I assume you are a man. Values for bodyfat and such change drastically if you're not. =P
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a bastard here but I just have to say something. A BMI of 30.3 is achievable without being overweight, though the only person I have ever met who can claim this is a professional bodybuilder.
That being said, I kind of have to piss on your parade a bit. I don't know what the standards are over there in America, but in the rest of the world 12-18% bodyfat is considered the healthy range. I was at 16% this Christmas and had a bad "oh MAN!" moment when I realized it no longer helped much to hold it in. I still had handles, I still had a belly visible through a t-shirt. Again, I am terribly sorry for bringing this up, but at 20% bodyfat you either have a broken measuring device or you are, not only by my definition but by medical definition, overweight.
I'm currently at roughly 83kg, 11% fat, 25.6 BMI, which means I am packing at least a bit of muscle. Those numbers mean ~73kg lean body mass. If I had 20% bodyfat that would put me at about 92.5kg, or a BMI of 28.8. So congrats on having more lean body mass than me (damnit) but I was fat at 86kg, 16% fat. At 92.5kg, 20% fat I'd not freaggin leave the house! Sorry mate, now go to the gym and work all that muscle mass you have! =D
Illness is not a sin, not being able to control what you stuff in your piehole and staying inside with a box of doughnuts whining about exercise being hard work instead of getting some exercise, though...
I don't get how people can keep making excuses! I mean, I get the motivation. It's so much easier to just claim the "I'm special, the rules don't apply and you don't understand my woes!"-excuses so readily employed by fatties than to do something.
Absolutely. Worst. Case. Scenario:
You actually have a metabolic disease that makes your metabolism, say, 20% (pretty damn far fetched!) lower than what is normal and it's not treatable (a pure lie). The maintenance level of a normal person your height/size might be 2500 calories. How on earth does this mean you should stuff your face with whatever you feel like and whine when you get fat? Your illness puts your maintenance needs at 2000 calories, so 1500 calories a day means you will drop a pound a week of pure fat! Add a bit of exercise and your weight loss increases even more. 1500 calories a day means you can eat plenty of food, if you eat right, and you'd lose weight and never go hungry.
Get the point..? The number of people who actually have a sickness that screws up their metabolism that bad is roughly equal to the number of people who have actually seen Bigfoot or Nessie. Even so, should you happen to be that one-in-a-gazillion guy who has a metabolic defect faaar worse than anything normally diagnosed, you still don't need to be a lard-ass. Besides, there are about 300 million americans at the moment, right? At >26% obesity, that means you've got 78.000.000 people who are obese. This is not counting people who are simply fat, we're talking 78 million need-custom-built-air-plane-seats fatties! How the FUCK is that not a sin?
Why on earth is no one correcting the asshats claiming anaerobic exercise doesn't burn fat?! Aerobic workouts (running, stair-master, etc.) gets your system working hard for the duration of the workout. As soon as your pulse drops, the body's need for energy instantly goes back to normal maintenance levels.
Lift some weights though, and you hurt your muscles. The body needs to put in a pretty significant effort to repair this damage (the process that makes one stronger), and this generally takes 24-48 hours. Jog for 60 minutes with a slight incline and you burn something like 600 calories. Hit the weights hard for 60 minutes, and enjoy a raised metabolism for the following two days!
This sort of mis-information makes me sad. The problem is that the general public always has and always will choose the Opera special "Large and Beautiful!" over the asshole reaming you with a brutal reality check. Understandable, I guess... If my life had sucked as long as I could remember, if I had never been happy with my own body and was the "victim" of a myriad of health issues, and some guy slapped me across the face and told me "BITCH, it's your OWN damn fault! Fix it, it's as simple as (calories in - calories out)!" I'd be pretty hard pressed to actually admit that yes, the situation is my own responsibility.
On the topic of mis-information.. I am a type 1 diabetic (not the lazy fat-ass kind) and I happen to know a thing or two about ketoacidosis. Low/no-carb diets work because a number of cells in the body (like the brain) can only burn two fuels: glucose and ketones. Glucose comes from carbohydrates (and if you're mess up your eating, protein synthesis, the breakdown of muscle), while ketones comes from the breakdown of dietary and stored fat. If you cut your carbs and eat plenty of healthy, filling protein and fat, your body will have to break down fat to get energy for the brain.
And this is where it gets nice! The body doesn't need insulin to metabolize ketones. Insulin is the worlds most potent growth hormone(-like substance), but it promotes fat storage as well as muscle buildup. Without insulin you shrink. Quickly! Assuming you eat healthy, get enough protein and take your vitamins your body gets enough juice to run of ketones and as such you will not lose muscle mass despite the lack of insulin. Yes, severe ketoacidosis (acidity is a side-effect of the rapid breakdown of fat) will hurt your kidneys. Drink 3-5L of water a day and you should be safe though, specifically if you take into account the fact that if you are obese, you will likely get diabetes and that defect ain't kind to the kidneys! Also, I don't have the reference at the moment but I remember reading about research that clearly showed, time after time, that a low-carb/high-fat diet drastically lowered bad cholesterol and raised the good kind.
Final nails in the carb-nation-coffin: 1. Ask google about caveman diets. What do you think our predecessors ate? You know those hunter-gatherers who lived before the advent of huge industrial farms.. Drawing a blank? Ok, I'll tell you: Meat and fat, fish and fowl, and whatever berries and fruit they could find! See what kind of diet the caveman diet resembles..? 2. You know that despite the traditional eskimo diet consisting almost exclusively of seal meat, seal fat, fish, and some more seal fat, heart disease and obesity were pretty much non-existent until outsiders started trying to "save" them from the Evil Saturated Fat using the very carbohydrate rich foods that have shown to be so very good to our general western health. 3. Check your history. Obesity very nearly didn't exist until researchers found out that fat must be evil because it contains 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrates which contains 4 calories per gram. Face the facts, humans were made to live of protein and fat, and to store as much energy as possible whenever carbohydrates were available (in case of food shortage etc.). Still think it's weird that 26% of the grand US-
Seriously? People still claim that..? The best english writers in WoW are the chinese gold sellers and that's saying a lot! (Hell, even most properly educated chinese/japanese people write english at a level comparable to that of norwegian grade school kids, and we've been repeatedly ripped by the EU for having a shitty educational system!)
By the way, why on earth is going to the gym, having a social life and playing WoW mutually exclusive? I do all three in addition to my full-time job, my coding hobby and lazy summer days at the beach.
And yes, WoW addicts are pathetic! I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I ask a friend if he wants to go bowling or see a movie or just hang out and he replies something like "lol ofc not! It's Wednesday, gotta keep my raid attendance up!" x(
I must say, Dr. Impossible, that post actually made me laugh out rather loud!
Also, I haven't the faintest clue why the parent post got downmodded Troll. You use sarcasm in a way that strokes and pleases my somewhat bitter, "I hate humanity"-type ego greatly.
Oh, and you make perfectly valid points. WoW is a game. There is no need to get all riled up about it. Sure, I have a level 80 warlock and a couple of other 60+ characters and I play WoW with my girlfriend a few hours a week. Do I claim it improves my social skills? No. Do I claim it improves my health or physical fitness? No. Do I claim it is a productive, useful activity? No.
And why? Because it doesn't, it won't and it isn't! Playing WoW won't change the world. It's multiplayer entertainment, kinda like the retarded younger brother of inviting a few friends over to watch a movie, play Wii and eat dinner, except we can't normally get an evening like that together as a spur of the moment thing. Log onto WoW though, and there will invariably be at least a couple of friends online ready for some fun.
Stop it! Stop justifying obesity by giving fatties excuses! The general public is dumb enough to actually be grossly overweight in the first place, do you really think they need to repeatedly hear people say things like "well, some lucky bastards are just born with a high metabolism!", "Being large is beautiful!", "Beauty comes form the inside, there is nothing wrong with beeing plus sized"?
Fact is, you CAN'T gain weight if you put less energy into your system than you expend! Finding an online basal metabolic ratecalculator isn't very hard either. Now, if you can't be arsed to learn anything about how your body works, spend 5 minutes with Google to find a BMR calculator and pay attention to how much you actually eat... Live a life unable to go to the beach, make people uncomfortable when you undress at the beach, get diabetes type 2 and die of heart complications at age 40.
Just don't force that on your children. If you do, you should be reported for child abuse.
On a somewhat related note.. I live in Norway and I can safely say that even though we are nowhere near USA level of crazy obesity, things are starting to change here as well. 7-8 years ago when I was in highschool, there were <5 overweight people in my entire school of ~300 students. These days, nearly everyone I see between age 15-19 is at least 5-10kg overweight. Hell, even the ones who happen to eat as much as they burn still look out of shape with girls sporting untrained thin thighs and flabby asses and the guys possessing the same level of upper body strength as my little sister! The exceptions are the morbidly obese and the sickly skinny, who seem to make up about the same percentage of the population now as the "10kg too much"-portion did a few years ago. Not "super size me" by any means, but still that is a lot different than a few years back!
Correction: 6 hours of sleep per night is (or at least can be) plenty enough. I sleep roughly from 00:30 to 05:30-06:00 on weekdays and have been doing so for the past 8 or so years. If I happen to get an hour or two less though, I completely crash around lunch time the following day. Thing is, the only real, valuable sleep you get is R.E.M. sleep, and the brain adapts. Sleep from 00:30 to 06:00 every night and I promise you two things:
1. For a few weeks, you'll feel miserable.
2. Once the brain has adapted, you will enter R.E.M. sleep much faster, and get the required 3 hours in just 5,5 hours of sleep.
Sleeping 8+ hours a day seems absolutely horrible to me. Shaving off 2 hours of sleep a night means you get 51133,90786 more hours of actually beeing sentient and aware and.. you know.. alive, during a 70 year time-span. Think about it.. 2130 days wasted for a measly 2 hours of sleep a day that you don't even need. Almost 6 years in 70 wasted not even beeing aware..
Slashdot Mirror
Ok ok, I was too quick to post. I get it *wanders off to corder with both feet firmly lodged in mouth*
Luckily, I never cared much about making an ass of myself, "thinking before speaking is like wiping your ass before you.. well, you get the idea" and all. So I'll just ask and hope I get an answer and not a painful reaming.
How do I launch the network agent? I've tried everything I can find here but at best it launches the game in keyboard control mode. Do I just suck? Should it be blatantly obvious how to get the tcp server up and running..?
Uuuh! Awesome! Seriously, how the hell did I not see that? It's not like that site is all that content heavy. o_O
I might just suffer from some sort of sneaky invisible ninja selective blindness but I can't seem to find any info on this TCP interface. Curse you, sneaky invisible ninja selective blindness!
Thanks for the friendly replies! ^^
Just to make one thing clear though, I'm not running for 1st place here. I just want to tinker around with this to see if I can make Mario survive any significant distance at all.
I'm thinking I might make a genetic algorithm type thing in which each string of "DNA" contains conditions and reactions. Like, conditions might be "blocking tile in position 1.0 (relative), no blocking tile in position 1.1" and the reaction would be "tap jump,press forward". Of course, represented as much as possible in a format that can easily and freely be mutated to change/add to/remove from condition/event-sets, add a new condition/event-set or remove one. Though, even if I could implement something like that smoothly enough to not get locked in some local maxima it would take a lot more than a week or two to both develop and let the evolution run it's course.
HAH! I also program loads of VB6 stuff! All your base, Lucy!
Anyways.. Yes, I know php isn't a compiled language. Yes, I know I'm a php scripter who enjoys php scripting. Does the fact that php is a language I enjoy immensely as a recreational platform for doing things like distributed processing MD5 brute forcing, the classic mona lisa genetic algorithm thingie and tic-tac-toe AI crap as well as making CMS/gallery/forum-systems for friends, a better helpdesk-system for work, a gatekeeper to merge several separate systems at work into one site with AD authentication, etc. exclude the possibility of me not being a pathetic script kiddie who thinks he's 1337? (yes, I know I wrote "n00b", zeros and all. my bad)
I did mention, did I not, that I have some experience with c/c++? I've done a ton of fun stuff in QBASIC back when I didn't know any better and I still use VB6 now and then because it's simplicity make it pretty much perfect for quick, ugly proof-of-concept/test/hobby project stuff. I've also tinkered enough with Delphi to know my way around that syntax fairly well and at least VB.Net is easy enough that if I was making software for other people, I'd jump from VB6 to VB.net to at least not be lagging a decade and a half behind.
Offtopic :I remember back in school.. One of my friends who (reads Linux conf files for a hobby) and I decided to write a chat program to soothe our lack of stimulating activities (we were in school, after all). He started writing his client in c++ on a terminal, I used VB6. Somewhat long story short, my program was in a perfectly usable state before he had the gui working proplerly and the program connecting to my server. Right tools for the right job and so on. ^^
Feel free to piss on my parade all you want. I really don't care (despite the stupidly long reply. I'm bored, ok?). I know that if I want to program Java, I will program Java. Obviously nowhere near as well as a seasoned Java developer but my general programming (yes, that would include simple scripting) knowledge (and Google) is enough to let me tackle most new languages fairly well for a noob.
Just so happens, my girlfriend and I have been together and lived with each other for two years now. She might be lying but considering
;)
A. She's hot as hell
B. I'm not exactly Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt
C. I don't have a very deep wallet =(
I'm guessing my 16cm, all-in-all pretty average self somehow manages to keep her happy ^^,
Oh, btw.. From what I know both from personal experience and what friends of both genders tell me, neither the size nor the speed matter all that much without stability, and that often comes down to skill more than tools.
First thought: "WOAH, this seems awesome! Can't wait to see what kind of crazy awesome stuff people come up with! Perhaps something like Air Man versus Genetic Algorithm?"
Second though: "Hmm.. Emulating keypresses is easy as cake, but I wonder how their game passes info about Mario's environment to the controller? After all, this is a contest of skill and creativity, so there should be a system in place to allow code monkeys and 1337 programmers to contribute, regardless of their tools of choice."
Still thinking: "Java only? What the hell !? I don't like Java! Ok, so I know Java probably doesn't suck as much as the purist c anti-Java crowd would have me believe, but I still think it's bloatware compared to c/c++ or even .Net stuff and I'm still kind of stuck on the ol' saying "Claiming Java is good because it works on all OS' is like claiming anal sex is good because it works on all genders.". I do ok for a n00b c/c++ programmer, I can monkey my way through anything with c/Pascal or BASIC syntax and an IDE, I'm an effin wiz at php, but of course this otherwise awesome competition has to be Java-only. For the love of all that is retro, why isn't this "heavily modded version" of the game made with an interface that would let me talk to it with good old QBASIC or c (which would be time appropriate ) or any other language for that matter!?
This challenge is still too tempting for me to just write a Flamebait-only reply though.. Could any of you brilliant, experienced guys point me in the direction of a Java dev tool (compiler, IDE, etc.) that is appropriate for someone who runs Windows on their main machine and has little to no experience doing Java development? I could really need something that is at least simple to set up and use so all I have to wrestle with is getting used to the actual language.
Thanks!
Eeeew.. Well, enjoy mate! No sloppy seconds for me!
Wohoo! Not only my first first-post but my first Offtopic post as well! (or at least, the first one to get modded as such)
The problem for me isn't censoring the internet per se, but rather that censorship often branches into the realms of legal (but not necessarily attractive to the majority of people - think fetish sites for example) activity and can crush freedom of speech.
All too true, I'm afraid. Not that I'd cry over a few blocked fetish sites in particular but if I want to learn how to make a hydrogen fuel cell, or hell, how to make a bomb, I want that info to be online and as easily accessible as any cookie recipe. Yes, bombs are bad. Does that mean that all us geeky MacGyver fans are terrorists who should be surveilled and controlled?
So, what do you want? A lawless place with its inherent risks and joys, or a gated community that forces you to leave the toilet seat down, always say please and thankyou, and kicks you out if you walk on the grass? Give me the lawless any day.
Slashdotters seem to be under the impression that it's one or the other, dictatorship or anarchy. Well it's not! Speeding or driving while intoxicated is hardly more legal than watching child porn and yet we don't have special tire-slashing patrols ensuring that no drunk driving or speeding can happen. Ok, car-related analogy (or whatever that was) done. My point is, rules can be enforced in cyberspace as much as in meatspace (yes, I know we all hate that word). In meatspace though, there are strict rules on how rules can and should be enforced. The law doesn't allow cops to go around giving people preemptive beatings to remind us they are there. Similarly, howstuffworks.com, textfiles.com, freakforum.nu (norwegian, retarded), /. and other such pages should never be blocked because I might find info there that I might use to build a bomb.
If I do, however, build a bomb and blow up a school and the police make a lawful arrest and get a by-the-book, fair warrant for my computer gear (and logs, where possible).. Sure, my computer can count as evidence (if I'm dumb enough to leave traces on it) every bit as much as if I had planned the attack with pen-and-paper and the cops found that. What they absolutely can't do is regulate and moderate the entire net so I can't find info that isn't in itself illegal but might help me make something that actually is. That would be like out-lawing toothbrushes because one could use them to make a shiv.
The nature of it doesn't change just because it's been in place a long time. It's a way of silencing minority views.
I fail to see your point. Isn't democracy in it self a way of silencing minority views? If less than 5% of the population agree with you enough to vote for your party, you shouldn't really be allowed to control anything at all. You're representing a pretty insignificant minority, not the general public.
Government efficiency and liberty of the population could generally be considered mutually exclusive. Give me small inefficient governments any day.
I'll probably be modded -1 Flamebait or something for this, but it's got to be said. People like you are gravel in the gears. Do you seriously think everyone with an opinion should have the right to directly influence things? Democracy is (or should be) "majority rules", not "majority tries to rule but tiny minority interest groups keep pissing on their parades and preventing them from getting any work done".
Sorry if I completely failed to understand your point. I'd rather have a government that does it's very best to steer the country in the direction the general mass of the people is pushing, instead of a government that goes absolutely nowhere because it tries to cater to everyones needs at the same time!
FIRST! =D
I'm not even sure you are the most deserving candidate for my reply but I am getting so fucking sick of all this incredible stupidity, I just hit the very first reply button I could find.
Ok, so you're entitled to your own opinion. When your wife breaks her neck and becomes a vegetable for the rest of her (then) miserable existence? Sure, she can refuse stem cell treatment, be my guest! When your mother gets Alzheimers and starts to slip away from you, painfully aware of what is happening every time she has a somewhat lucid moments? Take custody of your mother so you can make sure she doesn't get any of that fishy medical treatment you in your infinite wisdom have decided is evil.
But when the doctors one day tell me they can cure my type 1 Diabetes..? If my (as of yet to be conceived) kids inherit this crap defect from me, and the medical technology offers to fix it..? If someone can heal my grandfather's memory, or my uncle's broken back?
Consider this a fair warning: You better not be standing in my way because you believe, contrary to anything science tells us, that using a tiny clump of cells (that would otherwise be discarded as trash) to fix the broken parts of the people I love, is immoral. If you do, I will, come the day, remove you and your detestable, twisted view on moral and ethics with my own two hands.
I don't know when, exactly, a fetus should be considered human. Given that human children, according to the Mirror Test, don't start showing signs of self-awareness and consciousness before roughly the age of 1,5 years, I willingly bet my soul (should such a thing exist, if not, my brain/liver/heart/whatever would suffice as a replacement) that a clump of cells not even visible to the bare eye does not possess anything remotely close to consciousness!
Also, there is a lot of promising non-embryonic stem-cell research going on. Why on earth are people against this? A cell taken from my spinal fluid, treated chemically so it can mature into nerve or muscle tissue only, will allow doctors to fix my back/neck should I break it, my heart should I have a heart attack and get scar tissue, my brain should I get a stroke or Alzheimers... Though, I guess, when they've managed to regress a cell so far back that it has the same potential as an embryonic stem-cell, the same set of made up "rules" apply.
Scientific bottom line is, an 18 months old toddler is just barely starting to grasp the idea of Self and Them and Us (self-awareness and empathy). A 6 week old fetus doesn't even have a brain. In fact, if you scratch yourself good, you probably have more skin cells left under your fingernails than a 6 week old fetus consists of! So...
An abortion is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
A "morning after" abortion pill is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Going on the pill is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Using a condom is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Abstaining from sex can be a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Sterilization is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists) for whatever reason.
Hell, menstruating instead of constantly being pregnant from age 12 to 45 is a conscious choice to prevent a human life from developing (not ending one that already exists)!
Are you seriously saying that everyone is a mass murderer? Including the Pope?! I'm not much of a religious guy myself but not even I would go so far as to claim that!
Now get smart and contribute, or (i
They set us up the bomb!
That said, I never claimed I was not overweight. When I reach my target body fat percentage I will be somewhere in the mid-twenties for BMI. I apologize if I gave the impression that I was bragging, I assure you that this is not the case. At 20% body fat, though, I do happily leave the house. :)
Never accused you of bragging either, but in the middle of my own braggy rant I discovered that you have a good bit more lean body mass than I do, soo..
Ok, so I might just have overdone the part of not going outside, heh. My point was that at 16-17% bodyfat I did not feel comfortable at all because I knew people who saw me in a t-shirt would think I was out of shape (which I was). The leap from that to 20% is such that though I'd of course go outside, I'd never ever feel good about my apprearance. Of course, at BMI=30 and 20% bodyfat I assume you look pretty buffed as opposed to someone having the same BMI and 25-30% bodyfat. So go outside and enjoy summer to it's fullest! I know I'm trying hard to do just that, no matter how unhappy I am with my belly even at ~11% bodyfat. ^^
Oh, and on the actual topic of the story. =P The flu kills people. Infants, elderly, fat and others already weakened by some factor or other. Whatever the fatties preaching tolerance towards "their kind" say, having a BMI of >40 is not, cannot be healthy no matter how you look at it. With a disease which has the potensial of killing you if your immune system/heart/lungs ain't working as it should, it isn't exactly a groundbreaking discovery that all else being equal, fatties have a greater chance of dying from the flu.
Heh, I get a bit.. ranty when people are discussing stuff like this. I don't think I was accusing you of being unable to improve yourself. If that part was aimed at anyone in particular, it'd be poor syousef who is completely unable to lose weight and be healthy, even though his inability to do so means his wife who he loves will be left alone for 30 years after he shuffles (or rather, rolls) off this mortal coil.
Have a nice day! I'm heading home for some eggs or cod filét, then it's off to the gym for my almost daily Endorphin rush! =D
Yeah we're also talking about bodies that work very differently.
Where do you get the idea that your body and mine, the day we were born, worked so very differently? Knowing how the body loves to store excess energy as fat, how the stomach expands to accommodate whatever amount of food one stuffs into it, and how the carb-rich foods that permeate every grocery store everywhere makes one feel full for a total of 15-30 minutes before cravings start again... Are you going to tell me your out-of-this-world hunger pangs that no one is equipped to comprehend but you absolutely could not be the result of a life of bad nutrition? If the cycle of eating too much (expanding the stomach) and eating poorly (creating constant hunger, and fat storage) started when you were 3 years old, I feel sorry for you and can easily see how it could be a difficult cycle to break out of. Also, sugar is in fact addictive, just in case someone didn't know already.
Have you taken a look at the stats? We're not just talking about edge cases. THAT is the problem. THAT is why obesity itself is being called an epidemic. Don't let facts distract your ranting though.
Which are these facts you speak of? Do you have a working knowledge of genetics? If there was in fact a selection of mutations that removed all hope of being slim and healthy, I'd back off and bow my head in condolences to the sufferers. However:
1.Being overweight is not healthy. Statistically, healthy equals sexually attractive. Honestly.. I can't think of a great many things more off-putting (sexually) than an overweight woman both because of the appearance, instinctive attention to health issues and disgust at the lifestyle she most likely continues to cultivate. Ergo, these fantasy genes that makes one overweight beyond hope would not have any chance of suddenly spreading throughout the gene pool.
2.Even if a mutation appeared that somehow made the recipient hopelessly fat AND ragingly sexually attractive, it would take that mutation a lot longer than 2-3 generations to spread to 1/4 of the 300 million Americans alive today!
The way I see it, from a logical point of view, there is no way 78 million Americans can get away with blaming genetics. Yes, there will always be the odd case, but what is your reason for believing that a mutation causing morbid obesity would occur more often and spread more efficiently than one causing extra limbs, missing limbs, or whatever else would give you an obvious disadvantage in the reproductive "arms race"? (not comparing you to someone missing a limb, this is a theoretical comparison between existing mutations and the "fat beyond help"-gene you claim exists)
Your car analogy stinks. Blah blah
Again, the point I am trying to get across is that in normal people, the basal metabolic rate (relative to bodyweight/body composition) varies at most 5% either way. Again, some people, for example, have thyroid problems but this is easily diagnosed and treated. The fact stands that when it comes to metabolism there is very little variation within the norm, and most all those who genetically or because of disease or accidents fall outside the norm are diagnosed and treated. So where is your evidence supporting this condition where no matter what one eats, one gains weight despite this being impossible? Where is the genetic marker responsible for making people pile on lard no matter how hard these poor, poor people work? One would think that with 78 million obese people to treat, there would be a lot of money flowing into finding this malfunctioning gene and creating and selling a cure for fatness.
I'll tell you why, and I hope you don't get even more provoked than you already are (not trying to provoke anger, rather discussion and thought). The vast majority of overweight people, whether they have 5kg too much or 150kg, are the way they are because they ingest more calo
First of all, I assume you are a man. Values for bodyfat and such change drastically if you're not. =P
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a bastard here but I just have to say something. A BMI of 30.3 is achievable without being overweight, though the only person I have ever met who can claim this is a professional bodybuilder.
That being said, I kind of have to piss on your parade a bit. I don't know what the standards are over there in America, but in the rest of the world 12-18% bodyfat is considered the healthy range. I was at 16% this Christmas and had a bad "oh MAN!" moment when I realized it no longer helped much to hold it in. I still had handles, I still had a belly visible through a t-shirt. Again, I am terribly sorry for bringing this up, but at 20% bodyfat you either have a broken measuring device or you are, not only by my definition but by medical definition, overweight.
I'm currently at roughly 83kg, 11% fat, 25.6 BMI, which means I am packing at least a bit of muscle. Those numbers mean ~73kg lean body mass. If I had 20% bodyfat that would put me at about 92.5kg, or a BMI of 28.8. So congrats on having more lean body mass than me (damnit) but I was fat at 86kg, 16% fat. At 92.5kg, 20% fat I'd not freaggin leave the house! Sorry mate, now go to the gym and work all that muscle mass you have! =D
Illness is not a sin, not being able to control what you stuff in your piehole and staying inside with a box of doughnuts whining about exercise being hard work instead of getting some exercise, though...
I don't get how people can keep making excuses! I mean, I get the motivation. It's so much easier to just claim the "I'm special, the rules don't apply and you don't understand my woes!"-excuses so readily employed by fatties than to do something.
Absolutely. Worst. Case. Scenario:
You actually have a metabolic disease that makes your metabolism, say, 20% (pretty damn far fetched!) lower than what is normal and it's not treatable (a pure lie). The maintenance level of a normal person your height/size might be 2500 calories. How on earth does this mean you should stuff your face with whatever you feel like and whine when you get fat? Your illness puts your maintenance needs at 2000 calories, so 1500 calories a day means you will drop a pound a week of pure fat! Add a bit of exercise and your weight loss increases even more. 1500 calories a day means you can eat plenty of food, if you eat right, and you'd lose weight and never go hungry.
Get the point..? The number of people who actually have a sickness that screws up their metabolism that bad is roughly equal to the number of people who have actually seen Bigfoot or Nessie. Even so, should you happen to be that one-in-a-gazillion guy who has a metabolic defect faaar worse than anything normally diagnosed, you still don't need to be a lard-ass. Besides, there are about 300 million americans at the moment, right? At >26% obesity, that means you've got 78.000.000 people who are obese. This is not counting people who are simply fat, we're talking 78 million need-custom-built-air-plane-seats fatties! How the FUCK is that not a sin?
Why on earth is no one correcting the asshats claiming anaerobic exercise doesn't burn fat?! Aerobic workouts (running, stair-master, etc.) gets your system working hard for the duration of the workout. As soon as your pulse drops, the body's need for energy instantly goes back to normal maintenance levels.
Lift some weights though, and you hurt your muscles. The body needs to put in a pretty significant effort to repair this damage (the process that makes one stronger), and this generally takes 24-48 hours. Jog for 60 minutes with a slight incline and you burn something like 600 calories. Hit the weights hard for 60 minutes, and enjoy a raised metabolism for the following two days!
This sort of mis-information makes me sad. The problem is that the general public always has and always will choose the Opera special "Large and Beautiful!" over the asshole reaming you with a brutal reality check. Understandable, I guess... If my life had sucked as long as I could remember, if I had never been happy with my own body and was the "victim" of a myriad of health issues, and some guy slapped me across the face and told me "BITCH, it's your OWN damn fault! Fix it, it's as simple as (calories in - calories out)!" I'd be pretty hard pressed to actually admit that yes, the situation is my own responsibility.
On the topic of mis-information.. I am a type 1 diabetic (not the lazy fat-ass kind) and I happen to know a thing or two about ketoacidosis. Low/no-carb diets work because a number of cells in the body (like the brain) can only burn two fuels: glucose and ketones. Glucose comes from carbohydrates (and if you're mess up your eating, protein synthesis, the breakdown of muscle), while ketones comes from the breakdown of dietary and stored fat. If you cut your carbs and eat plenty of healthy, filling protein and fat, your body will have to break down fat to get energy for the brain.
And this is where it gets nice! The body doesn't need insulin to metabolize ketones. Insulin is the worlds most potent growth hormone(-like substance), but it promotes fat storage as well as muscle buildup. Without insulin you shrink. Quickly! Assuming you eat healthy, get enough protein and take your vitamins your body gets enough juice to run of ketones and as such you will not lose muscle mass despite the lack of insulin. Yes, severe ketoacidosis (acidity is a side-effect of the rapid breakdown of fat) will hurt your kidneys. Drink 3-5L of water a day and you should be safe though, specifically if you take into account the fact that if you are obese, you will likely get diabetes and that defect ain't kind to the kidneys! Also, I don't have the reference at the moment but I remember reading about research that clearly showed, time after time, that a low-carb/high-fat diet drastically lowered bad cholesterol and raised the good kind.
Final nails in the carb-nation-coffin:
1. Ask google about caveman diets. What do you think our predecessors ate? You know those hunter-gatherers who lived before the advent of huge industrial farms.. Drawing a blank? Ok, I'll tell you: Meat and fat, fish and fowl, and whatever berries and fruit they could find! See what kind of diet the caveman diet resembles..?
2. You know that despite the traditional eskimo diet consisting almost exclusively of seal meat, seal fat, fish, and some more seal fat, heart disease and obesity were pretty much non-existent until outsiders started trying to "save" them from the Evil Saturated Fat using the very carbohydrate rich foods that have shown to be so very good to our general western health.
3. Check your history. Obesity very nearly didn't exist until researchers found out that fat must be evil because it contains 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrates which contains 4 calories per gram. Face the facts, humans were made to live of protein and fat, and to store as much energy as possible whenever carbohydrates were available (in case of food shortage etc.). Still think it's weird that 26% of the grand US-
I vastly preffer EDIT.COM
Seriously? People still claim that..? The best english writers in WoW are the chinese gold sellers and that's saying a lot! (Hell, even most properly educated chinese/japanese people write english at a level comparable to that of norwegian grade school kids, and we've been repeatedly ripped by the EU for having a shitty educational system!)
By the way, why on earth is going to the gym, having a social life and playing WoW mutually exclusive? I do all three in addition to my full-time job, my coding hobby and lazy summer days at the beach.
And yes, WoW addicts are pathetic! I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I ask a friend if he wants to go bowling or see a movie or just hang out and he replies something like "lol ofc not! It's Wednesday, gotta keep my raid attendance up!" x(
I must say, Dr. Impossible, that post actually made me laugh out rather loud!
Also, I haven't the faintest clue why the parent post got downmodded Troll. You use sarcasm in a way that strokes and pleases my somewhat bitter, "I hate humanity"-type ego greatly.
Oh, and you make perfectly valid points. WoW is a game. There is no need to get all riled up about it. Sure, I have a level 80 warlock and a couple of other 60+ characters and I play WoW with my girlfriend a few hours a week. Do I claim it improves my social skills? No. Do I claim it improves my health or physical fitness? No. Do I claim it is a productive, useful activity? No.
And why? Because it doesn't, it won't and it isn't! Playing WoW won't change the world. It's multiplayer entertainment, kinda like the retarded younger brother of inviting a few friends over to watch a movie, play Wii and eat dinner, except we can't normally get an evening like that together as a spur of the moment thing. Log onto WoW though, and there will invariably be at least a couple of friends online ready for some fun.
Damnit, I meant "..unable to walk up a flight of stairs or sit comfortably on any bus/airplane/train not tailored to your weightclass"
Stop it! Stop justifying obesity by giving fatties excuses! The general public is dumb enough to actually be grossly overweight in the first place, do you really think they need to repeatedly hear people say things like "well, some lucky bastards are just born with a high metabolism!", "Being large is beautiful!", "Beauty comes form the inside, there is nothing wrong with beeing plus sized"?
Fact is, you CAN'T gain weight if you put less energy into your system than you expend! Finding an online basal metabolic rate calculator isn't very hard either. Now, if you can't be arsed to learn anything about how your body works, spend 5 minutes with Google to find a BMR calculator and pay attention to how much you actually eat... Live a life unable to go to the beach, make people uncomfortable when you undress at the beach, get diabetes type 2 and die of heart complications at age 40.
Just don't force that on your children. If you do, you should be reported for child abuse.
On a somewhat related note.. I live in Norway and I can safely say that even though we are nowhere near USA level of crazy obesity, things are starting to change here as well. 7-8 years ago when I was in highschool, there were <5 overweight people in my entire school of ~300 students. These days, nearly everyone I see between age 15-19 is at least 5-10kg overweight. Hell, even the ones who happen to eat as much as they burn still look out of shape with girls sporting untrained thin thighs and flabby asses and the guys possessing the same level of upper body strength as my little sister! The exceptions are the morbidly obese and the sickly skinny, who seem to make up about the same percentage of the population now as the "10kg too much"-portion did a few years ago. Not "super size me" by any means, but still that is a lot different than a few years back!
Correction: 6 hours of sleep per night is (or at least can be) plenty enough. I sleep roughly from 00:30 to 05:30-06:00 on weekdays and have been doing so for the past 8 or so years. If I happen to get an hour or two less though, I completely crash around lunch time the following day. Thing is, the only real, valuable sleep you get is R.E.M. sleep, and the brain adapts. Sleep from 00:30 to 06:00 every night and I promise you two things:
1. For a few weeks, you'll feel miserable.
2. Once the brain has adapted, you will enter R.E.M. sleep much faster, and get the required 3 hours in just 5,5 hours of sleep.
Sleeping 8+ hours a day seems absolutely horrible to me. Shaving off 2 hours of sleep a night means you get 51133,90786 more hours of actually beeing sentient and aware and.. you know.. alive, during a 70 year time-span. Think about it.. 2130 days wasted for a measly 2 hours of sleep a day that you don't even need. Almost 6 years in 70 wasted not even beeing aware..