What a bunch of B.S. D&D came from miniatures wargaming.
And dice came from throwing rocks around, and chess came from an Indian game called chaturanga, and cards and dominos both had the same precursor game in China. I hate to break it to you because it makes me feel old too, but Gygax's original version of dungeon crawling is the same kind of ancient history to most players today. When compared to the average age of most players, the "recent" trend of improv theater has been that way their whole lives.
Settlers is well-known for being horridly UN-balanced!
Any game that uses dice adds an element of randomness. Thats the entire point of dice after all. It makes it possible for less skilled players to stay competitive, and keeps the game on the "casual" side of things. Otherwise you go into a whole different game category, and get games like Chess & Go, where the best player will almost always win. (People don't give their chess pieces unique names and personalities either!)
Remember kids: games are not stories. If some mechanic would make for a great story, driving plot and drama, that doesn't mean that it is a good mechanic for games.
If you want a pure strategy and tactics game, then choose a boardgame or computer game. Everyone I know that likes pen & paper RPG, likes it specifically because it makes a great format for collective storytelling, with some rules thrown in (the book), and some chance thrown in (the dice), to make it more challenging / interesting / dramatic.
Settlers of Catan is a well balanced game, with great mechanics- but people don't name their cities and come up with riveting tales about the empires they are building. Warhammer 40k is a great tactical wargame, but there usually isn't a lot of "character development". D&D is neither of those games.
He probably should be paranoid at this point. Every intelligence service in the world knows his name, and a non-trivial number of them want him to stop. The US govt and protection citizenship implies is likely the only reason he is still alive.
I'm saying when compared to dismembering children, searching a house WITH the homeowners permission, but WITHOUT an easily obtained warrant, is the lesser evil. It isn't great, and they certainly could have gone about it in a better way. But lets not pretend that the impact of looking for a person is worse than the impact of detonating bombs in a public place. Sorry if that is too pragmatic for ya.
The marathon bombings were nothing compared to the police action that followed.
I must've missed some of the news. How many people had their limbs blown off by the police during the search? How many children were killed during the optional curfew?
Right. You're reinforcing my point.
It is currently hard to acquire such weapons, thus they are never used. It isn't because the criminals WANT to have the same firepower level as police and homeowners. They would want to use automatic weapons but can't get them because of restrictions and cost.
However, a criminal could find a sturdy metal pipe to use as a barrel and print the rest of an automatic weapon.
With this technology, it changes from hard, to easy. From expensive, to cheap. This guy is putting on his own handicaps by only using plastic. He could have a fully functioning automatic rifle today if he wanted and was willing to substitute a few metal parts. And if he can do it today, lots of people can do it tomorrow.
For something as un-necessary as computer software & hardware
You think computer hardware and software are less important than cable? The software that fully controls 1.25 billion computers is less important to regulate than the price people pay to watch tv? (I realize they regulate other things about cable, but content and price of tv are the biggest). Plus, the computer companies weren't stupid for signing the agreements, they absolutely would have gone out of business if their competition had a cheap OS deal with MS, and they had PC's with no OS and made people install their own that costs more than the competitions pre-installed version.
The answer is always the same for gun nuts: Some objects (such as knives or cars) are dangerous, therefore, there is no reason to attempt any kind of regulation of other dangerous objects, and thus no reason to keep weapons of war out of the hands of mentally ill felons. There is rarely any logic, it usually boils down to an irrational fear of other people invading their homes. I'd wager that most of them just want the chance to play out Rambo fantasies and legally kill another human.
You make Microsoft sound so innocent when worded as a "patent issue" rather than calling it outright theft. Microsoft partnered with a Stac, worked directly with Stac engineers in implementing the technology at the OS level, then decided that the technology was a MS invention and cut Stac out of any kind of licensing deal. The jury found Microsoft guilty.
The backyard forging of a zip gun has already reached its pinnacle. There is basically no improvement in technology that can make it easier or better if you are just going with plumping parts. The 3d tech is still in its infancy, and is expected to improve a thousand fold in efficiency, strength, speed, etc, over the next couple decades. I don't think anyone is all that worried about todays capabilities, and that 1st generation alpha gun.
How easy is it for Joe Blow to buy a fully automatic weapon?
How many fully automatic weapons are used in crimes today?
How many criminals would prefer to use an untraceable, cheap, disposable, and fully automatic weapon instead of what they currently have?
Because making a rudimentary one-time device using a metalwork shop is the exact same threat level as buying a 3d printer, downloading plans off the internet, and producing an automatic assault rifle?
Is "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start" hacking? Thats essentially what he did, just fewer button presses.
It may be a cheat code, and an unintended exploit, but to call it hacking is a stretch. Don't some games reward you more for winning multiple times in a row? Isn't that in fact commonplace? How is he supposed to read the minds of the programmers and know that this was unintended behavior rather than his reward for winning multiple times?
1. I'm more interested in the suicide stats to prove that people act in a rash manner. I agree it should be legal.
2. For every shot fired in self defense, 11 people shoot themselves, 7 people are shot by criminals, and 4 others are accidentally shot, That totally ignores the times somebody pulls a gun and chases somebody off, so it is difficult to judge. To be fair, it also ignores the number of times somebody is mugged by gunpoint but not shot. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182
But, ignoring the cases of "threat of gun" versus "shooting by gun", by at least this one measurement, guns cause 22 times the negative impact, versus the positive impact.
If I had a life-saving operation that could save the life of a baby, but required the hearts of 22 living babies to work, would you consider that an effective ratio, and worthwhile cost to society? Obviously this is an extreme and unrealistic example, I'm just using it to make a point. You think guns are overall effective for self-defense, but I consider the consequences and side-effects of those 22 other people who get shot as an example of "the cure is worse than the disease", for society as a whole. Obviously the one person who's life gets saved is happy. But what about the 22 families of the other victims? Is that one persons life worth the cost to them?
Now, solutions are difficult, and none of the gun control proposals are going to instantly fix the problems. I'm just pointing out that having a gun in hand, DOES make someone more likely to commit suicide, and it DOES make someone more likely to shoot a loved one during an argument, and you can't simply ignore the 95.6% of times guns are used against society, just because they are also used in defence of society 4.347% of the time.
People make rash decisions. If they have a gun in their hand at the time, those rash decisions tend to have deadlier consequences.
"One of the things that the majority of studies have determined is that gun availability does in fact affect the rate of suicides, and this has been confirmed in all states. As strange as it sounds, people on the verge of making this decision will often give up on the idea if they are given enough time to reconsider. They might also be diverted from it by the fact that they don’t have an “easy” way to end their life. Ultimately this is to say that a lot of people who have committed suicide with a gun might still be alive today if they didn’t have access to a weapon."
And that right there is one of America's biggest problems: A significant number of people, spurred on by a certain television network and their religious organizations, actively do everything they can to remain ignorant of the world around them.
There are people just as 'enlightened' as you are on the other side. They make fun at the idiots on your side and chances are, they, like you, ignore the fact that you may not be the same kind of morron that they've been taught to stereotype.
You are saying that people who ignore science (reality), and actively try to inhibit both research and education are enlightened? Really? Because that is actually the exact opposite of the definition of enlightened.
enlightened /enltnd/
Adjective
1. Having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook.
I'm not sure that divisiveness is nearly the problem that your kind of false equivalency is. Both sides are not equal. Religious zealots that ignore reality to promote their own myths are not "just as enlightened" about science.
The catch is, nearly all traffic accidents are preventable by one of the parties involved. Most are at low speeds and most are due to the driver not paying attention to the situtation around them. Next time you are at a busy traffic light, count the cars around you. Chances are one of them will be in an accident that year. Now do that every time you stop at a traffic light....
And the tiny satellite they put in orbit is tumbling, thus their ability to hit within 1,000 miles of the target they are aiming at is questionable. (Plus a tumbling warhead would burn up on re-entry)
No. Intelligence reports suggest that they can't fit a nuclear warhead on any kind of missile with decent range. Plus, their missile tests are falling way short of reaching anywhere but South Korea, China, and maybe Japan, and their test success ratio has been low.
There is basically no scenario in which North Korea can start a war and "win". The regime can kill a bunch of people at the cost of their own lives, but that is something only religious fanatics do. They are bluffing to get sanctions lifted, and clearly trying to bluff the US into a pre-emptive strike, in order to paint themselves as a victim. It won't work, but they don't realize it because their analysts work for a totalitarian regime and can't provide the unvarnished truth to the leadership.
It's a sad situation all around. I mostly just pity the north korean people for their inept leaders.
In short, if he says he does so, I consider it highly probable he does.
I consider it way more probable that he isn't aware of how much Monsanto food he eats, and simply thinks it is very little. His other related comment was to just not buy food with the GMO label on it to avoid Monsanto food.
A) Not all Monsanto seed is GMO. I knew they had a large distribution of non-GMO seed, but I didn't realize until now that ALSO a large percentage of the organic produce in supermarkets is grown from Monsanto seed: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-month-without-monsanto
B) GMO labels aren't used in the US. I'm assuming that he isn't in america, and has little knowledge of american grocers, since there are no labelling laws in any state. Since the discussion is about Worst Company in America, and specifically Monsanto's influence in American food, I had assumed he was in country. It might be easier to avoid Monsanto in other countries. I don't think its actually possible in the US unless you grow almost all your own food. It requires a huge lifestyle change, and dedication to that mission, and the attitude of "I just don't buy their products" isn't a realistic way of avoiding them.
Unless you only eat organic produce, and no grains such as corn, wheat, or soy, no meat and no dairy. I'm guessing you don't. It isn't possible to eat at any restaurant in America without eating Monsanto products.
Slashdot Mirror
What a bunch of B.S. D&D came from miniatures wargaming.
And dice came from throwing rocks around, and chess came from an Indian game called chaturanga, and cards and dominos both had the same precursor game in China. I hate to break it to you because it makes me feel old too, but Gygax's original version of dungeon crawling is the same kind of ancient history to most players today. When compared to the average age of most players, the "recent" trend of improv theater has been that way their whole lives.
Settlers is well-known for being horridly UN-balanced!
Any game that uses dice adds an element of randomness. Thats the entire point of dice after all. It makes it possible for less skilled players to stay competitive, and keeps the game on the "casual" side of things. Otherwise you go into a whole different game category, and get games like Chess & Go, where the best player will almost always win. (People don't give their chess pieces unique names and personalities either!)
Remember kids: games are not stories. If some mechanic would make for a great story, driving plot and drama, that doesn't mean that it is a good mechanic for games.
If you want a pure strategy and tactics game, then choose a boardgame or computer game. Everyone I know that likes pen & paper RPG, likes it specifically because it makes a great format for collective storytelling, with some rules thrown in (the book), and some chance thrown in (the dice), to make it more challenging / interesting / dramatic.
Settlers of Catan is a well balanced game, with great mechanics- but people don't name their cities and come up with riveting tales about the empires they are building. Warhammer 40k is a great tactical wargame, but there usually isn't a lot of "character development". D&D is neither of those games.
He probably should be paranoid at this point. Every intelligence service in the world knows his name, and a non-trivial number of them want him to stop. The US govt and protection citizenship implies is likely the only reason he is still alive.
I'm saying when compared to dismembering children, searching a house WITH the homeowners permission, but WITHOUT an easily obtained warrant, is the lesser evil. It isn't great, and they certainly could have gone about it in a better way. But lets not pretend that the impact of looking for a person is worse than the impact of detonating bombs in a public place. Sorry if that is too pragmatic for ya.
The marathon bombings were nothing compared to the police action that followed.
I must've missed some of the news. How many people had their limbs blown off by the police during the search? How many children were killed during the optional curfew?
Right. You're reinforcing my point.
It is currently hard to acquire such weapons, thus they are never used. It isn't because the criminals WANT to have the same firepower level as police and homeowners. They would want to use automatic weapons but can't get them because of restrictions and cost.
However, a criminal could find a sturdy metal pipe to use as a barrel and print the rest of an automatic weapon.
With this technology, it changes from hard, to easy. From expensive, to cheap. This guy is putting on his own handicaps by only using plastic. He could have a fully functioning automatic rifle today if he wanted and was willing to substitute a few metal parts. And if he can do it today, lots of people can do it tomorrow.
A person can live without either, but civilization can no longer exist without computers.
For something as un-necessary as computer software & hardware
You think computer hardware and software are less important than cable? The software that fully controls 1.25 billion computers is less important to regulate than the price people pay to watch tv? (I realize they regulate other things about cable, but content and price of tv are the biggest). Plus, the computer companies weren't stupid for signing the agreements, they absolutely would have gone out of business if their competition had a cheap OS deal with MS, and they had PC's with no OS and made people install their own that costs more than the competitions pre-installed version.
The answer is always the same for gun nuts: Some objects (such as knives or cars) are dangerous, therefore, there is no reason to attempt any kind of regulation of other dangerous objects, and thus no reason to keep weapons of war out of the hands of mentally ill felons. There is rarely any logic, it usually boils down to an irrational fear of other people invading their homes. I'd wager that most of them just want the chance to play out Rambo fantasies and legally kill another human.
You make Microsoft sound so innocent when worded as a "patent issue" rather than calling it outright theft. Microsoft partnered with a Stac, worked directly with Stac engineers in implementing the technology at the OS level, then decided that the technology was a MS invention and cut Stac out of any kind of licensing deal. The jury found Microsoft guilty.
The backyard forging of a zip gun has already reached its pinnacle. There is basically no improvement in technology that can make it easier or better if you are just going with plumping parts. The 3d tech is still in its infancy, and is expected to improve a thousand fold in efficiency, strength, speed, etc, over the next couple decades. I don't think anyone is all that worried about todays capabilities, and that 1st generation alpha gun.
How easy is it for Joe Blow to buy a fully automatic weapon?
How many fully automatic weapons are used in crimes today?
How many criminals would prefer to use an untraceable, cheap, disposable, and fully automatic weapon instead of what they currently have?
That is why 3d printed guns are a game-changer.
Because making a rudimentary one-time device using a metalwork shop is the exact same threat level as buying a 3d printer, downloading plans off the internet, and producing an automatic assault rifle?
Is "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start" hacking? Thats essentially what he did, just fewer button presses.
It may be a cheat code, and an unintended exploit, but to call it hacking is a stretch. Don't some games reward you more for winning multiple times in a row? Isn't that in fact commonplace? How is he supposed to read the minds of the programmers and know that this was unintended behavior rather than his reward for winning multiple times?
1. I'm more interested in the suicide stats to prove that people act in a rash manner. I agree it should be legal.
2. For every shot fired in self defense, 11 people shoot themselves, 7 people are shot by criminals, and 4 others are accidentally shot, That totally ignores the times somebody pulls a gun and chases somebody off, so it is difficult to judge. To be fair, it also ignores the number of times somebody is mugged by gunpoint but not shot. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182
But, ignoring the cases of "threat of gun" versus "shooting by gun", by at least this one measurement, guns cause 22 times the negative impact, versus the positive impact.
If I had a life-saving operation that could save the life of a baby, but required the hearts of 22 living babies to work, would you consider that an effective ratio, and worthwhile cost to society? Obviously this is an extreme and unrealistic example, I'm just using it to make a point. You think guns are overall effective for self-defense, but I consider the consequences and side-effects of those 22 other people who get shot as an example of "the cure is worse than the disease", for society as a whole. Obviously the one person who's life gets saved is happy. But what about the 22 families of the other victims? Is that one persons life worth the cost to them?
Now, solutions are difficult, and none of the gun control proposals are going to instantly fix the problems. I'm just pointing out that having a gun in hand, DOES make someone more likely to commit suicide, and it DOES make someone more likely to shoot a loved one during an argument, and you can't simply ignore the 95.6% of times guns are used against society, just because they are also used in defence of society 4.347% of the time.
Are you saying that if you had a gun in your possession, that it would increase the liklihood that you would become a violent threat to the public?
It does. Just like easy access to guns increases the suicide rate. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3456383/
People make rash decisions. If they have a gun in their hand at the time, those rash decisions tend to have deadlier consequences.
"One of the things that the majority of studies have determined is that gun availability does in fact affect the rate of suicides, and this has been confirmed in all states. As strange as it sounds, people on the verge of making this decision will often give up on the idea if they are given enough time to reconsider. They might also be diverted from it by the fact that they don’t have an “easy” way to end their life. Ultimately this is to say that a lot of people who have committed suicide with a gun might still be alive today if they didn’t have access to a weapon."
http://stateofguns.com/impact-of-weapon-availability-on-suicide-rates-865/
And that right there is one of America's biggest problems: A significant number of people, spurred on by a certain television network and their religious organizations, actively do everything they can to remain ignorant of the world around them.
There are people just as 'enlightened' as you are on the other side. They make fun at the idiots on your side and chances are, they, like you, ignore the fact that you may not be the same kind of morron that they've been taught to stereotype.
You are saying that people who ignore science (reality), and actively try to inhibit both research and education are enlightened? Really? Because that is actually the exact opposite of the definition of enlightened.
/enltnd/
enlightened
Adjective
1. Having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook.
I'm not sure that divisiveness is nearly the problem that your kind of false equivalency is. Both sides are not equal. Religious zealots that ignore reality to promote their own myths are not "just as enlightened" about science.
Looks like about 30 lines of code can replace the whole thing.
You are assuming birth rates based on wealth, when really both wealth and birth rates trend based on education levels.
There are roughly 200 million drivers in the US. They have roughly 11 million accidents per year.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/transportation/motor_vehicle_accidents_and_fatalities.html
The catch is, nearly all traffic accidents are preventable by one of the parties involved. Most are at low speeds and most are due to the driver not paying attention to the situtation around them. Next time you are at a busy traffic light, count the cars around you. Chances are one of them will be in an accident that year. Now do that every time you stop at a traffic light....
And the tiny satellite they put in orbit is tumbling, thus their ability to hit within 1,000 miles of the target they are aiming at is questionable. (Plus a tumbling warhead would burn up on re-entry)
No. Intelligence reports suggest that they can't fit a nuclear warhead on any kind of missile with decent range. Plus, their missile tests are falling way short of reaching anywhere but South Korea, China, and maybe Japan, and their test success ratio has been low.
There is basically no scenario in which North Korea can start a war and "win". The regime can kill a bunch of people at the cost of their own lives, but that is something only religious fanatics do. They are bluffing to get sanctions lifted, and clearly trying to bluff the US into a pre-emptive strike, in order to paint themselves as a victim. It won't work, but they don't realize it because their analysts work for a totalitarian regime and can't provide the unvarnished truth to the leadership.
It's a sad situation all around. I mostly just pity the north korean people for their inept leaders.
Because being skilled in a field means that person is somehow immune to becoming unemployed and desperate?
In short, if he says he does so, I consider it highly probable he does.
I consider it way more probable that he isn't aware of how much Monsanto food he eats, and simply thinks it is very little. His other related comment was to just not buy food with the GMO label on it to avoid Monsanto food.
A) Not all Monsanto seed is GMO. I knew they had a large distribution of non-GMO seed, but I didn't realize until now that ALSO a large percentage of the organic produce in supermarkets is grown from Monsanto seed: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-month-without-monsanto
B) GMO labels aren't used in the US. I'm assuming that he isn't in america, and has little knowledge of american grocers, since there are no labelling laws in any state. Since the discussion is about Worst Company in America, and specifically Monsanto's influence in American food, I had assumed he was in country. It might be easier to avoid Monsanto in other countries. I don't think its actually possible in the US unless you grow almost all your own food. It requires a huge lifestyle change, and dedication to that mission, and the attitude of "I just don't buy their products" isn't a realistic way of avoiding them.
Bzzt. Wrong.
Unless you only eat organic produce, and no grains such as corn, wheat, or soy, no meat and no dairy. I'm guessing you don't. It isn't possible to eat at any restaurant in America without eating Monsanto products.