I tend to agree...GH seems like more of an exercise in reflexes set to music, but if you are either 1. not a guitar player or 2. are, but don't consider this an extension of playing guitar, then I can see how it could be enjoyable (caveat: this opinion was formed playing GH at Best Buy for 10 minutes).
There was a game a decade or so ago called, I think, Mr Bones? It had 6 or 7 stock riffs that you controlled with the keypad, and you had to hit the buttons in a sequence that was musically 'pleasing' (the timing seemed right, the riffs seemed to flow together)...that was fun in a similar way...the music seemed more 'real' since you weren't playing along to a track, but it was more limited in what you could play (since there really weren't notes...just collections of riffs). I think there was a drum bit too, but I never got that far...stupid ice lake.
My wife bought a new HP running vista a couple of weeks ago; she loves it for the most part: media center, dvr capability, all shiny and pretty. However, the lack of hardware support is maddening; her new quickcam wouldn't work on vista (conflicted with the hauppage tuner card), but miraculously the microsoft lifecam worked fine...hm. Funny, HP doesn't even have drivers for the current-model officejet we bought with the HP PC...sigh. Also, I got a bsod this AM trying to do something really tricky, like look at a.jpg. The allow/cancel popup really is maddening, though...the apple commercials got it right. There are some programs that require 4 or 5 confirmations.
I bet I know them better than most people...in fact, I'll lay $20 on it right now for the under, I'll give you 10 points at 4:1...kidding, kidding...
Actually, when you live here you end up being a tour guide for visiting friends quite a bit, so even though I very very rarely ever game, I've been in probably every casino in town at least once, the popular ones on the strip (and the ones downtown close to my office with decent food) many times. Also, most of the activities in town are tied to casinos somehow: most of the movie theaters, all of the shows, most of the touring exhibits, many of the good restaurants, and 95% of the large meeting spaces are all in casinos. It has its ups and downs but the smoke gets really old really quick...happily, the smoke is offset by the way visiting females tend to dress on the strip. sigh...
I've always found it interesting/creepy how in many of the big casinos in Vegas it is really easy and welcoming coming in, but confusing and cumbersome to leave...Excalibur is a good example: a moving walkway shuttles you right in the door, but to leave you have to find your way around the moving walkway, since there is no outbound equivalent, sometimes shuffling between turrets, up stairs, etc. Station Casinos are another good example, where the entrances are all big and well-marked from the outside, but once you get in the door, the exits are all blackened/darkened/mirrored so they kind of blend into the rest of the decor, and the inside of the casinos are labyrinthine at best. At many like Sahara, Imperial Palace, Luxor, and Wynn, the main entrance dumps you out into the valet horseshoe, so you have to brave walking in front of taxicabs, limos, and impatient drunk drivers to get off of the property.
Here in Vegas a lot of the casinos still use coins...my theory is that it is such a pain to deal with three full plastic cups full of quarters, finding a cage, standing in line, etc that grandma is more likely to keep pushing the button until the quarters are all gone or the BIGONE hits...like a sucker, I have fallen into that trap myself.
True statement...all they need to do is call their card issuer and tell them they need to issue a chargeback; likely they will only need to present a copy of the receipt for the 'actual' purchase amount--visa and MC tend to side with cardholders on these if there is clear evidence that the cardholder 'intended' to pay $0.23 for the Godfather Saga, even if they go to arbitration with the acquiring bank. We went through this exact problem years ago at Egghead (anyone still have their Egghead Card?), which coincidently was obsorbed by Amazon via three or four mergers...could be the same eggheads running the web site.
I can't find the linkie, but there is another one out there somewhere for Las Vegas visitors (real Las Vegas Heroes?)...like Mr Shiny Shirt Club Guy and Miss I Only Pole Dance to Pay for College
There is a large school of thought and debate that supports that (myself included, to a certain extent), but I have to disagree with that statement on symantics; the strategy involved with or the act of publicizing that you have a gun/bomb and aren't afraid to use it is a deterrent, not the existence of the weapon. It is really hard to argue that a device designed to propel a chunk of metal at high speed in a specific trajectory, often given to law enforcement officers and soldiers who are then trained to point that device at a person and activate it in a manner that will hopefully end that person's life, is not designed to do so.
Taking your example, it could just as easily be stated that the only reason for guns to be manufactured is so that the NRA can make newsletters...one follows the other, but Smith and Wesson would disagree on why their employees show up to work; their managers would tell you that the purpose of guns is to make money for their company, which also follows the same reasoning. Effect follows cause, not vice versa.
I can't find the citation, but we studied that paper in business grad school; it found in inverse relationship between being an effective manager (produces results, keeps the wheels turning) and a successful manager (high pay, long title), as well as a big disparity in terms of daily functions. If I remember correctly, the effective manager spent 80% of his time 'working' (reading/generating reports, talking to staff, being in meetings), whereas the successful manager spent 80% of his time talking to people who did not work for him (networking).
Most anyone who's worked in a corporate environment can vouch for that empirically, I'm sure; I work for UltraMegaBank and am the only person in my division in this entire state, and I often have to jump between business lines to get ahead simply because the powers that be want their right-hand people on their right hand, and I'm not willing to move to Podunk Banktown to get ahead (at least not yet...).
Visa doesn't care about your contract with the merchant; they are a third party to that relationship, as is the card acquiring bank (who will serve as Visa's/Mastercard's proxy in the case of disputes). Their concern in the case of a chargeback is: can one party prove their case as to the validity (or lack thereof) of the transaction, validity including: cardholder knew the charge amount, agreed to allow the merchant to charge their card, and received the agreed service/product, amongst other things.
Cold comfort at best, to be sure, but Hawaii didn't become a state until 1959; the military base that was attacked (during wartime, mind you) was in a U.S. annexed, self-governing territory, much like Guam is now.
That's actually a really good point...a domestic skirmish wouldn't look quite like that, it would probably have more people opting to not fight because they value their SUVs and 6 figure jobs more than their freedoms, but from a tactical perspective it is an interesting proof-of-concept, I guess. On the other hand, with the disposable income floating around this country, I'm sure some pretty scary weapons would likely surface on the populace side.
OK, I exaggerated a bit...All very good points, but it from over here it feels bigger, I suppose, because now we are being attacked on our own lands for the first time since the 1800s.
Your last point mirrors my own: it's a red herring.
Yes and no...owning a weapon does not help protect one from being spied on, etc...the intention of the 2nd amendment was to provide another layer of safeguard against tyranny. During the drafting of what would become the Bill of Rights, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists both (eventually) agreed that the power of the government should never be greater than the power of the people; therefore, the counterbalance to a standing army, which gave the Anti-Federalists the willies, was a "well armed militia" (i.e., everyone owns a gun). The overarching concept there is that if the president becomes a dictator and the congress can't stop him, we could, in theory, take up arms against "his" army.
The problem with the modern interpretation is obviously Joe-12Guage vs. B1 Bomber and his gang of Boom Boom makers.
...certainly more than if Clinton had continued ignoring them
Obviously subjective, but I sure don't feel any more secure now, with subway bombers and gatoraid-n-hairgel rougues still trying to meke their points...all we did was stir the nest.
Only an idiot would.
My point exactly.
only an idiot would ask a question such as that...
But isn't that the point? The world being a safer place because my mail can be now be opened indiscriminently is an idiotic statement. You have supported my point.
First, asshat...
If you are going to debate, be a f()cking grownup.
we didn't kill 3K soldiers
No, but we sure as hell sent them over there to their doom, didn't we? The Iraqis didn't swim over here and get them.
ein executed Sheits(sp), not Sunnis. Third, he executed more like hundreds of thousands
My bad, they were Sunni. I'm sure he did much worse in his time, but that's not what he hung for (officially): Quote from FoxNews: The so-called Butcher of Baghdad, who was president of Iraq from 1979 until he was deposed by Coalition forces in April 2003, was convicted of the 1982 killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail.
I'm not arguing for Clinton or what he did (although I was able to carry hair gel on an airplane back then). I'm arguing against using the really really f()cking broad umbrella of terrorism as a reason to step on the bill of rights.
The framers created the constitution and bill of rights because they were facing the type of threats that we are currently facing: totalitarian government control. Terrorism is the worst thing our country has had to face in possibly centuries, granted, and it needs to be dealt with directly. But, there is very clear evidence that the Bush family and their buddies want to make their stamp on history as not the regime which battled terrorism abroad, but as the team who brought the term "executive power" back into the oval office. Rumsfeld and Cheney both worked for Gerald Ford, and were appalled at the amount of power taken away from the executive branch after Watergate, and they supposedly blamed Ford for that. The absolutely phenomenal amount of liberties being shed under the flag of Fighting Terrorism, much of which has absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria, etc, provide evidence to that end.
Do you feel safer since 9/11? Are you confident the Freedom Tower will stand forever because W can open your mail? Did hanging Hussein and killing 3,000 american soldiers as punishment for Hussein executing 148 Sunnis shut down the suicide-bomber factories? Don't even get me started on the irreversable damage done to the establishment clause...This is about control and power, not security.
That's why we can meet in groups and discuss politics without control. That's why we can protest in public. That's why we can carry guns. That's why we can publish information and criticisms of the government. Once you let those rights go (which W has been doing a great job on, summarily), it is really hard to go back; and if we can't discuss what our leaders are doing publicly and criticise them and protest their actions and not have to worry about if that letter to the editor of the Times was intercepted and "stored as evidence of terrorism", then we lose our quasi-democracy and become a full-fledged plutocracy/oligarchy, just like the one we went to war to split from in the 1770's.
Makes you wonder how much of the stuff he signs is actually being read by him
Probably none of it outside of summaries, but he knows exactly what he's signing...he just doesn't give a f()ck, and he would probably be the first to admit it, if he wasn't being filmed.
Bingo...that's the issue, not the fact that signing statements don't hold water, nor that these things kind of, maybe violate the constitution. The fact that the current regime has made it crystal clear that they feel they have the right to take any action they desire, regardless of the downstream implications, the poor survey results, or the "legality" or such actions...that is scary as shit, folks. Example: the PATRIOT act, which actually has the word "terrorist" in the acronym, is regularly used to gather evidence in non-terrorism cases. They did it, nobody sued (at least, successfully), so they set a precedent. Same thing with this crap: gosh, we knew it wasn't a bomb in that box being sent to Senator Harry Reid, but because search and seizure is now a gray area, we thought we'd just see what was in that package from the Hualapai tribal council... .
The fact that Bush has issued orders of magnitude more signing statements than any other sitting president is clear evidence that such behavior sits in his overall strategy, and the signing statements are to cover his bible-thumping, two-bit warlord ass when (if) we ever buck up and decide to run him out on a rail.
well, folks, that's the reality of it...I work for one of the companies (think really really big U.S. bank) which tends to be on the cutting edge of cutting (costs, morale, etc), and can tell you that as of the last couple of years, holiday parties and year-end bonuses and gifts are officially outlawed. Not discouraged, not backburnered until things pick up, they are by policy not allowed. Granted, if a group want to get together and have a (dry) potluck and white elephant exchange on their own dimes, the larger corporation will turn their backs on it, provided local management are on board. Them's the brakes, and that's the way the other large corporations are moving on these types of topics: (wholesale expense reductions) > (warm, fuzzy morale muffins)
So, there is no such thing as self-determination? if an atheist builds a house, is it that 1. the house doesn't really exist, or 2. although he thinks he did it out of free will, god really guided his will to undertake the project (thereby making him an unwilling theist)...?
I would argue that men are rational because that is the 'better' state of the world (as understood by mankind on the whole), and that religion follows on the shirttails of that concept, not vice-versa. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination or rationality to see that if a group of athests and/or agnostics were dropped off on an island with naught but the clothes on their backs, it would not take them long to start building shelter, finding food, creating social order and hierarchies, mating, etc. Why? Because a giant invisible hand is pushing them in that direction? Not so much...because they are inherently rational and seek order, due to the fact that irrational and unorderly specimens tended to not survive long in more spartan conditions, like the last ice age. I repeat, humans are rational because based on their genetic makeup, they tend in that direction.
Sand is small and coarse becase it has been pounded by ocean waves for many years. Giraffes have long necks because there is an untapped source of leaves up there. Most species on the planet like moderate temperatures because that is what our planet offers, for the most part-- those who prefer colder temperatures live at extremes of north or south; those who prefer it a bit warmer live near underwater thermal vents. Period. It really is that simple. Occum's razor says go for the simple solution, not to make shit up to fill in the gaps.
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I tend to agree...GH seems like more of an exercise in reflexes set to music, but if you are either 1. not a guitar player or 2. are, but don't consider this an extension of playing guitar, then I can see how it could be enjoyable (caveat: this opinion was formed playing GH at Best Buy for 10 minutes).
There was a game a decade or so ago called, I think, Mr Bones? It had 6 or 7 stock riffs that you controlled with the keypad, and you had to hit the buttons in a sequence that was musically 'pleasing' (the timing seemed right, the riffs seemed to flow together)...that was fun in a similar way...the music seemed more 'real' since you weren't playing along to a track, but it was more limited in what you could play (since there really weren't notes...just collections of riffs). I think there was a drum bit too, but I never got that far...stupid ice lake.
Bra-vo! You could spend a lifetime without getting a better setup for that joke! (wipes tear)
My wife bought a new HP running vista a couple of weeks ago; she loves it for the most part: media center, dvr capability, all shiny and pretty. However, the lack of hardware support is maddening; her new quickcam wouldn't work on vista (conflicted with the hauppage tuner card), but miraculously the microsoft lifecam worked fine...hm. Funny, HP doesn't even have drivers for the current-model officejet we bought with the HP PC...sigh. Also, I got a bsod this AM trying to do something really tricky, like look at a .jpg. The allow/cancel popup really is maddening, though...the apple commercials got it right. There are some programs that require 4 or 5 confirmations.
I bet I know them better than most people...in fact, I'll lay $20 on it right now for the under, I'll give you 10 points at 4:1...kidding, kidding...
Actually, when you live here you end up being a tour guide for visiting friends quite a bit, so even though I very very rarely ever game, I've been in probably every casino in town at least once, the popular ones on the strip (and the ones downtown close to my office with decent food) many times. Also, most of the activities in town are tied to casinos somehow: most of the movie theaters, all of the shows, most of the touring exhibits, many of the good restaurants, and 95% of the large meeting spaces are all in casinos. It has its ups and downs but the smoke gets really old really quick...happily, the smoke is offset by the way visiting females tend to dress on the strip. sigh...
I've always found it interesting/creepy how in many of the big casinos in Vegas it is really easy and welcoming coming in, but confusing and cumbersome to leave...Excalibur is a good example: a moving walkway shuttles you right in the door, but to leave you have to find your way around the moving walkway, since there is no outbound equivalent, sometimes shuffling between turrets, up stairs, etc. Station Casinos are another good example, where the entrances are all big and well-marked from the outside, but once you get in the door, the exits are all blackened/darkened/mirrored so they kind of blend into the rest of the decor, and the inside of the casinos are labyrinthine at best. At many like Sahara, Imperial Palace, Luxor, and Wynn, the main entrance dumps you out into the valet horseshoe, so you have to brave walking in front of taxicabs, limos, and impatient drunk drivers to get off of the property.
Here in Vegas a lot of the casinos still use coins...my theory is that it is such a pain to deal with three full plastic cups full of quarters, finding a cage, standing in line, etc that grandma is more likely to keep pushing the button until the quarters are all gone or the BIGONE hits...like a sucker, I have fallen into that trap myself.
True statement...all they need to do is call their card issuer and tell them they need to issue a chargeback; likely they will only need to present a copy of the receipt for the 'actual' purchase amount--visa and MC tend to side with cardholders on these if there is clear evidence that the cardholder 'intended' to pay $0.23 for the Godfather Saga, even if they go to arbitration with the acquiring bank. We went through this exact problem years ago at Egghead (anyone still have their Egghead Card?), which coincidently was obsorbed by Amazon via three or four mergers...could be the same eggheads running the web site.
As I remember, that is why Montana ended the "safe and sane" no-limit speed limit experiment, too...they lost highway funding.
I can't find the linkie, but there is another one out there somewhere for Las Vegas visitors (real Las Vegas Heroes?)...like Mr Shiny Shirt Club Guy and Miss I Only Pole Dance to Pay for College
There is a large school of thought and debate that supports that (myself included, to a certain extent), but I have to disagree with that statement on symantics; the strategy involved with or the act of publicizing that you have a gun/bomb and aren't afraid to use it is a deterrent, not the existence of the weapon. It is really hard to argue that a device designed to propel a chunk of metal at high speed in a specific trajectory, often given to law enforcement officers and soldiers who are then trained to point that device at a person and activate it in a manner that will hopefully end that person's life, is not designed to do so.
Taking your example, it could just as easily be stated that the only reason for guns to be manufactured is so that the NRA can make newsletters...one follows the other, but Smith and Wesson would disagree on why their employees show up to work; their managers would tell you that the purpose of guns is to make money for their company, which also follows the same reasoning. Effect follows cause, not vice versa.
I can't find the citation, but we studied that paper in business grad school; it found in inverse relationship between being an effective manager (produces results, keeps the wheels turning) and a successful manager (high pay, long title), as well as a big disparity in terms of daily functions. If I remember correctly, the effective manager spent 80% of his time 'working' (reading/generating reports, talking to staff, being in meetings), whereas the successful manager spent 80% of his time talking to people who did not work for him (networking).
Most anyone who's worked in a corporate environment can vouch for that empirically, I'm sure; I work for UltraMegaBank and am the only person in my division in this entire state, and I often have to jump between business lines to get ahead simply because the powers that be want their right-hand people on their right hand, and I'm not willing to move to Podunk Banktown to get ahead (at least not yet...).
Visa doesn't care about your contract with the merchant; they are a third party to that relationship, as is the card acquiring bank (who will serve as Visa's/Mastercard's proxy in the case of disputes). Their concern in the case of a chargeback is: can one party prove their case as to the validity (or lack thereof) of the transaction, validity including: cardholder knew the charge amount, agreed to allow the merchant to charge their card, and received the agreed service/product, amongst other things.
Cold comfort at best, to be sure, but Hawaii didn't become a state until 1959; the military base that was attacked (during wartime, mind you) was in a U.S. annexed, self-governing territory, much like Guam is now.
That's actually a really good point...a domestic skirmish wouldn't look quite like that, it would probably have more people opting to not fight because they value their SUVs and 6 figure jobs more than their freedoms, but from a tactical perspective it is an interesting proof-of-concept, I guess. On the other hand, with the disposable income floating around this country, I'm sure some pretty scary weapons would likely surface on the populace side.
Correction: should have read "they were not Sunni"...
OK, I exaggerated a bit...All very good points, but it from over here it feels bigger, I suppose, because now we are being attacked on our own lands for the first time since the 1800s.
Your last point mirrors my own: it's a red herring.
Yes and no...owning a weapon does not help protect one from being spied on, etc...the intention of the 2nd amendment was to provide another layer of safeguard against tyranny. During the drafting of what would become the Bill of Rights, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists both (eventually) agreed that the power of the government should never be greater than the power of the people; therefore, the counterbalance to a standing army, which gave the Anti-Federalists the willies, was a "well armed militia" (i.e., everyone owns a gun). The overarching concept there is that if the president becomes a dictator and the congress can't stop him, we could, in theory, take up arms against "his" army.
The problem with the modern interpretation is obviously Joe-12Guage vs. B1 Bomber and his gang of Boom Boom makers.
...certainly more than if Clinton had continued ignoring them
Obviously subjective, but I sure don't feel any more secure now, with subway bombers and gatoraid-n-hairgel rougues still trying to meke their points...all we did was stir the nest.
Only an idiot would.
My point exactly.
only an idiot would ask a question such as that...
But isn't that the point? The world being a safer place because my mail can be now be opened indiscriminently is an idiotic statement. You have supported my point.
First, asshat...
If you are going to debate, be a f()cking grownup.
we didn't kill 3K soldiers
No, but we sure as hell sent them over there to their doom, didn't we? The Iraqis didn't swim over here and get them.
ein executed Sheits(sp), not Sunnis. Third, he executed more like hundreds of thousands
My bad, they were Sunni. I'm sure he did much worse in his time, but that's not what he hung for (officially): Quote from FoxNews: The so-called Butcher of Baghdad, who was president of Iraq from 1979 until he was deposed by Coalition forces in April 2003, was convicted of the 1982 killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail.
I'm not arguing for Clinton or what he did (although I was able to carry hair gel on an airplane back then). I'm arguing against using the really really f()cking broad umbrella of terrorism as a reason to step on the bill of rights.
it was Inigo's response to Vissini's inceccant rattle of "incontheevable!"
Ordinarily I don't respond to ACs, but...
The framers created the constitution and bill of rights because they were facing the type of threats that we are currently facing: totalitarian government control. Terrorism is the worst thing our country has had to face in possibly centuries, granted, and it needs to be dealt with directly. But, there is very clear evidence that the Bush family and their buddies want to make their stamp on history as not the regime which battled terrorism abroad, but as the team who brought the term "executive power" back into the oval office. Rumsfeld and Cheney both worked for Gerald Ford, and were appalled at the amount of power taken away from the executive branch after Watergate, and they supposedly blamed Ford for that. The absolutely phenomenal amount of liberties being shed under the flag of Fighting Terrorism, much of which has absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria, etc, provide evidence to that end.
Do you feel safer since 9/11? Are you confident the Freedom Tower will stand forever because W can open your mail? Did hanging Hussein and killing 3,000 american soldiers as punishment for Hussein executing 148 Sunnis shut down the suicide-bomber factories? Don't even get me started on the irreversable damage done to the establishment clause...This is about control and power, not security.
That's why we can meet in groups and discuss politics without control. That's why we can protest in public. That's why we can carry guns. That's why we can publish information and criticisms of the government. Once you let those rights go (which W has been doing a great job on, summarily), it is really hard to go back; and if we can't discuss what our leaders are doing publicly and criticise them and protest their actions and not have to worry about if that letter to the editor of the Times was intercepted and "stored as evidence of terrorism", then we lose our quasi-democracy and become a full-fledged plutocracy/oligarchy, just like the one we went to war to split from in the 1770's.
Makes you wonder how much of the stuff he signs is actually being read by him
Probably none of it outside of summaries, but he knows exactly what he's signing...he just doesn't give a f()ck, and he would probably be the first to admit it, if he wasn't being filmed.
Bingo...that's the issue, not the fact that signing statements don't hold water, nor that these things kind of, maybe violate the constitution. The fact that the current regime has made it crystal clear that they feel they have the right to take any action they desire, regardless of the downstream implications, the poor survey results, or the "legality" or such actions...that is scary as shit, folks. Example: the PATRIOT act, which actually has the word "terrorist" in the acronym, is regularly used to gather evidence in non-terrorism cases. They did it, nobody sued (at least, successfully), so they set a precedent. Same thing with this crap: gosh, we knew it wasn't a bomb in that box being sent to Senator Harry Reid, but because search and seizure is now a gray area, we thought we'd just see what was in that package from the Hualapai tribal council... .
The fact that Bush has issued orders of magnitude more signing statements than any other sitting president is clear evidence that such behavior sits in his overall strategy, and the signing statements are to cover his bible-thumping, two-bit warlord ass when (if) we ever buck up and decide to run him out on a rail.
well, folks, that's the reality of it...I work for one of the companies (think really really big U.S. bank) which tends to be on the cutting edge of cutting (costs, morale, etc), and can tell you that as of the last couple of years, holiday parties and year-end bonuses and gifts are officially outlawed. Not discouraged, not backburnered until things pick up, they are by policy not allowed. Granted, if a group want to get together and have a (dry) potluck and white elephant exchange on their own dimes, the larger corporation will turn their backs on it, provided local management are on board. Them's the brakes, and that's the way the other large corporations are moving on these types of topics: (wholesale expense reductions) > (warm, fuzzy morale muffins)
So, there is no such thing as self-determination? if an atheist builds a house, is it that 1. the house doesn't really exist, or 2. although he thinks he did it out of free will, god really guided his will to undertake the project (thereby making him an unwilling theist)...?
I would argue that men are rational because that is the 'better' state of the world (as understood by mankind on the whole), and that religion follows on the shirttails of that concept, not vice-versa. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination or rationality to see that if a group of athests and/or agnostics were dropped off on an island with naught but the clothes on their backs, it would not take them long to start building shelter, finding food, creating social order and hierarchies, mating, etc. Why? Because a giant invisible hand is pushing them in that direction? Not so much...because they are inherently rational and seek order, due to the fact that irrational and unorderly specimens tended to not survive long in more spartan conditions, like the last ice age. I repeat, humans are rational because based on their genetic makeup, they tend in that direction.
Sand is small and coarse becase it has been pounded by ocean waves for many years. Giraffes have long necks because there is an untapped source of leaves up there. Most species on the planet like moderate temperatures because that is what our planet offers, for the most part-- those who prefer colder temperatures live at extremes of north or south; those who prefer it a bit warmer live near underwater thermal vents. Period. It really is that simple. Occum's razor says go for the simple solution, not to make shit up to fill in the gaps.
Because that wouldn't be rational, would it?
Hm...how should I vote on initiative 7? Well, WWGD?
(shudders and skulks off into dark corner to tie socks into noose)