You're referring to the till jockeys earning just north of minimum wage? That 'glassy-eyed' look is them not giving a fuck about your philosophical pontificating as they struggle on with life.
Feeling a sense of meaningless superiority is priceless.
I find your sig and comment to be the very embodiment of the inherent duality of man. Or to put it another way, it's all fun and games till cob666's got some product to move.
No need for cynicism, this is all about politics and a public that doesn't recognise the immense scientific value of sampling a new world, with or without life. The endless stream of articles about water -> life from NASA is a pretty astute move if they want to keep getting funding.
Even the most generous estimates show that even if we throw trillions we don't have at it with current tech renewables will only provide at most around 30% of the US power needs
What people have forgotten is that there was never any such thing as a free press. Newspapers got started off by people trying to promote their own viewpoint and nothing has changed since. Even the blogosphere is more free than the press ever were.
Kings started out as dictators. Then they managed to convince people that god had granted them and their children the right to be dictators, and the suckers lapped it up.
Everyone cares about the pay. Maybe the pay is sex, or land development rights, or granting licences, or even just the ability to have people shot on a whim, but there's always something to attract the sociopaths.
They paid for the privilege? With that said a) it's as funny as fuck to watch all the apple flacks freaking out and b) when will tablet manufacturers just bite the bullet and come up with a pull-out superthin keyboard for tablets? I mean really it's not exactly a tough engineering problem.
A game were you can loose nothing to a human opponent is kind of boring.
The problem is that almost all of these games are based on D&D style levels in one form or another. A level 10 character is going to kill a level 2 character every single day of the week and twice on Sunday, so you can't really run PK games like that, the obsessives would rule the roost. If games were less focused on turning individual PCs into demigods and more focused on something else (like actual adventures), you could have PK to a certain extent.
OR you can simply not get married and don't take on all the legal and emotional baggage that comes with the most peculiar institution. If a woman doesn't want to be with you unless you get married, she's not after your personality and chiseled jaw buddy.
If they could tie it in with the aliens universe and we got to see some of the action out past the Shoulder of Orion I would pay good money to watch that. Stir in a little Outland, maybe a pinch of Air America, and I'll buy all the merchandise as well. It's quite possible to keep the philosophical overtones and deep questions while having some gunplay as well. I would tap Robert Downey Jr for the bladerunner.
Really? Solar energy can create 1) plastics, 2) fertilizers, 3) pesticides, 4) fuel for ships and trains, 5) medicines, etc. There isn't a replacement for cheap petroleum,
Before the 'but that's only fertiliser' comeback kicks in, I want you to close your eyes and try to extrapolate.
Energy is not the only bottleneck, just the most visible. Around a sixth of the world's population lives for under $1/day. Trying to bring them up to the standard of living that is associated with reducing their birth rate is impossible. Not difficult, impossible. There isn't enough farmland to grow the cotton and wool to give them all sheets, mattresses, curtains, blankets, and half a dozen changes of clothing, for example.
Bullshit. Entertaining that you've focused on clothing since everything else was preemptively dealt with though.
We're like rabbits on an island that is overrunning their environment's carrying capacity. No other large (>20 kilos) mammal has ever had the population numbers that humans have today.
Like everything else you're coming out with, you have no evidence to support this. Not to mention that it's irrelevant anyway since we have the advantage of using our brains rather than having to browse off the savannah.
The worldwide population of wildebeest or caribou is smaller than the human population of Shanghai. We have to reduce our population or Ma Nature is going to do it for us, and she's a bitch.
You are a moron, and I don't mean that in a kindly joking manner, malthusians are generally in the lower 30%, and I'm not talking about earnings.
Possibly you imagine this will be the start of a long exchange of posts whereby you walk away if not triumphant then at least with enough wear and tear on your keyboard to feel as though you've represented whatever backward political viewpoint fills your afternoons successfully, and hey maybe someone will be suckered in making it all worthwhile. But in reality almost everyone has better things to do than read such an exchange, and I know I certainly have more important things to do than waste my time indulging in it. So let me know when the first major die offs occur due to resource depletion, and I will merrily eat my hat.
And the small, relatively monolithic, stable social democracies are, unfortunately, not a very practical role model for the Rest of the World. Maybe in a couple of hundred years, if we make it that long.
Why? Other than Norway with its massive oil reserves (the proceeds from which it invests incidentally, rather than pumping them back into the local economy), what's so special about these countries?
Look, the big problem globally is that there are to many of us for the planet to handle it gracefully for any length of time. But the planet will indeed handle it. Most of "us" won't like that, but then again, the Universe doesn't give a shit.
Again, why? We have more than enough food, energy is literally falling from the sky, fresh water ceases to become a problem even for areas massively overrepresented visibility-wise like California for that reason, we will see the end of fossil fuel powered vehicles within our lifetimes, all in all the future looks rosy. I forget the exact number but the entire energy requirements of the EU could be supplied by covering a single digit percentage of the unoccupied areas of the Sahara in somewhat dated PV cells. No, that's not a recommended course of action, among other things solar towers are more efficient, it just underlines how much energy there is all aorund us.
All of the problems, every last one, are political, not physical.
Western Europe is already a society like this, and the crime rates seem to be well in hand. And before anyone starts talking about Greece or Spain, the Scandinavian countries are more socialised than almost anywhere and are doing just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
You're referring to the till jockeys earning just north of minimum wage? That 'glassy-eyed' look is them not giving a fuck about your philosophical pontificating as they struggle on with life.
Feeling a sense of meaningless superiority is priceless.
For everything else, there's mastercard.
I find your sig and comment to be the very embodiment of the inherent duality of man. Or to put it another way, it's all fun and games till cob666's got some product to move.
No need for cynicism, this is all about politics and a public that doesn't recognise the immense scientific value of sampling a new world, with or without life. The endless stream of articles about water -> life from NASA is a pretty astute move if they want to keep getting funding.
Even the most generous estimates show that even if we throw trillions we don't have at it with current tech renewables will only provide at most around 30% of the US power needs
Actually a few trillion into wind would cover half of global energy requirements, and solar has much much more potential. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/sep/wind-energy-potential-091012.html
So tell us genius, if the king is so popular and harmless, why does he need an entire branch of the military to look after his online reputation?
Whoops.
What people have forgotten is that there was never any such thing as a free press. Newspapers got started off by people trying to promote their own viewpoint and nothing has changed since. Even the blogosphere is more free than the press ever were.
Kings started out as dictators. Then they managed to convince people that god had granted them and their children the right to be dictators, and the suckers lapped it up.
Everyone cares about the pay. Maybe the pay is sex, or land development rights, or granting licences, or even just the ability to have people shot on a whim, but there's always something to attract the sociopaths.
Pfeh please, weak tea. My porn collection alone needs its own NOC.
They paid for the privilege? With that said a) it's as funny as fuck to watch all the apple flacks freaking out and b) when will tablet manufacturers just bite the bullet and come up with a pull-out superthin keyboard for tablets? I mean really it's not exactly a tough engineering problem.
Also where tabletop RPGs shine over everything else, including MUDs.
A game were you can loose nothing to a human opponent is kind of boring.
The problem is that almost all of these games are based on D&D style levels in one form or another. A level 10 character is going to kill a level 2 character every single day of the week and twice on Sunday, so you can't really run PK games like that, the obsessives would rule the roost. If games were less focused on turning individual PCs into demigods and more focused on something else (like actual adventures), you could have PK to a certain extent.
I move that slashdot change Timmah's name by fiat to Hodor.
Take your homework to stackexchange timmah.
OR you can simply not get married and don't take on all the legal and emotional baggage that comes with the most peculiar institution. If a woman doesn't want to be with you unless you get married, she's not after your personality and chiseled jaw buddy.
Yup, paper never refused ink.
He's not much for gravitas though - maybe Downey would do better as the corporate bad guy, upon reflection.
If they could tie it in with the aliens universe and we got to see some of the action out past the Shoulder of Orion I would pay good money to watch that. Stir in a little Outland, maybe a pinch of Air America, and I'll buy all the merchandise as well. It's quite possible to keep the philosophical overtones and deep questions while having some gunplay as well. I would tap Robert Downey Jr for the bladerunner.
Tabletop RPGs are different though, there's a human element in the GM that computers can't mimic.
Really? Solar energy can create 1) plastics, 2) fertilizers, 3) pesticides, 4) fuel for ships and trains, 5) medicines, etc. There isn't a replacement for cheap petroleum,
Yes there is. Read: http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.ie/2007/11/314-peak-oil-and-fertilizer-no-problem.html
Before the 'but that's only fertiliser' comeback kicks in, I want you to close your eyes and try to extrapolate.
Energy is not the only bottleneck, just the most visible. Around a sixth of the world's population lives for under $1/day. Trying to bring them up to the standard of living that is associated with reducing their birth rate is impossible. Not difficult, impossible. There isn't enough farmland to grow the cotton and wool to give them all sheets, mattresses, curtains, blankets, and half a dozen changes of clothing, for example.
Bullshit. Entertaining that you've focused on clothing since everything else was preemptively dealt with though.
We're like rabbits on an island that is overrunning their environment's carrying capacity. No other large (>20 kilos) mammal has ever had the population numbers that humans have today.
Like everything else you're coming out with, you have no evidence to support this. Not to mention that it's irrelevant anyway since we have the advantage of using our brains rather than having to browse off the savannah.
The worldwide population of wildebeest or caribou is smaller than the human population of Shanghai. We have to reduce our population or Ma Nature is going to do it for us, and she's a bitch.
You are a moron, and I don't mean that in a kindly joking manner, malthusians are generally in the lower 30%, and I'm not talking about earnings.
Possibly you imagine this will be the start of a long exchange of posts whereby you walk away if not triumphant then at least with enough wear and tear on your keyboard to feel as though you've represented whatever backward political viewpoint fills your afternoons successfully, and hey maybe someone will be suckered in making it all worthwhile. But in reality almost everyone has better things to do than read such an exchange, and I know I certainly have more important things to do than waste my time indulging in it. So let me know when the first major die offs occur due to resource depletion, and I will merrily eat my hat.
Have yourself a good day now.
And the small, relatively monolithic, stable social democracies are, unfortunately, not a very practical role model for the Rest of the World. Maybe in a couple of hundred years, if we make it that long.
Why? Other than Norway with its massive oil reserves (the proceeds from which it invests incidentally, rather than pumping them back into the local economy), what's so special about these countries?
Look, the big problem globally is that there are to many of us for the planet to handle it gracefully for any length of time. But the planet will indeed handle it. Most of "us" won't like that, but then again, the Universe doesn't give a shit.
Again, why? We have more than enough food, energy is literally falling from the sky, fresh water ceases to become a problem even for areas massively overrepresented visibility-wise like California for that reason, we will see the end of fossil fuel powered vehicles within our lifetimes, all in all the future looks rosy. I forget the exact number but the entire energy requirements of the EU could be supplied by covering a single digit percentage of the unoccupied areas of the Sahara in somewhat dated PV cells. No, that's not a recommended course of action, among other things solar towers are more efficient, it just underlines how much energy there is all aorund us.
All of the problems, every last one, are political, not physical.
And a cool name it is. Sounds like a man who knows his way round a set of nunchucks.
Western Europe is already a society like this, and the crime rates seem to be well in hand. And before anyone starts talking about Greece or Spain, the Scandinavian countries are more socialised than almost anywhere and are doing just fine.
No, sounds like the janitor in Scrubs tbh.
True, the various wars in places like Iraq should be factored into the picture as well.
How much did those cost again?