We might consider letting you in if you learn to spell "colour" correctly, ditch that pansy baseball thing for a real sport called "hockey" and learn how to brew a decent beer.
I love a good hoax as much as the next guy (the perl/python/parrot thing was great), but I dread April 1 every year now. Disabling every second news source on the planet for 24 hours leaves me with nothing to do but actual work.
That was just sloppy/tired writing on my part. I use vim, but I get stuff from people who use Dreamweaver (and use it like a crutch, not like a development tool) and I am dying to make it a less painful activity for myself. Turning table infested layouts into code driven templates is as much fun as letting a monkey throw feces at you.
This is one of the reasons I think Sins of a Solar Empire looks interesting. One of the key parts of the game is different races with very different abilities.
Haven't had a chance to play it yet (so little time for gaming anymore...), but I'm definitely going to make time for this one. Might be worth a peek if you're into space based RTS's.
Perhaps you can answer something for me. I regularly get templates done in Dreamweaver (by someone who actually takes pride in the fact that he doesn't know HTML/CSS), and they are an absolute mess of tables, class="Default", inlined styles and such. I haven't looked at Dreamweaver in years (yay, vim!), but does it encourage this kind of behaviour? I was under the impression that you could actually create clean, standards compliant code with it. Is there a magic "don't create crap" option I can make him check? Or would he actually have to learn something?
I only manage myself, and I'm on a deadline, so the best thing I can probably do is point you to the blog of a genuinely smart manager, Rands in Repose.
Even though it's not really aimed at me, not being a manager, I still find at least a couple of things to take away from every entry.
More rank and file programmers should read this guy, too. Gives you a real insight into what is involved in the bigger picture. It will make you a better developer.
These make for great legends, but as much as I hate to admit it, I've gotten very serious about my work. Easter eggs are not generally appreciated by the Powers That Be, or by clients paying big cash for a product. My personal reputation, and producing a quality product have become important to me.
There's also the fact that that more code == more bugs. You can't get around that. Why open up a professional product and your reputation as a developer by making it more likely that you'll screw up?
I can see certain exceptions to this - for instance, games with easter eggs (approved, of course) can add to the charm of a product. An easter in egg in Quicken would be less cool.
(Bugger. Forgot I had HTML formatting on. Apologies for double posting.)
I'm actually not certain why or when it began. The introduction to the Fraser Institute paper indicates it was government run due to the potential impact of liquor on society, and this way it could be regulated more closely. (I should note that the Fraser Institute is known as being fairly right wing on social and economic issues, so I usually like to have secondary sources when referencing them, but I don't see any reason to doubt them on this or their ALCB numbers.)
It was a provincially run monopoly up until about ten years ago, and I believe all other provinces, possibly excepting Quebec, are still run by provincial governments. Some other provinces also have private vendors, though their main market is after hours sales. Alberta is now completely privatized.
The government in Alberta has been Conservative (somewhat like the Republicans, and moving further right in recent years) for several decades. Our last premier, Ralph Klein, was big on privatization. He de-regulated the ALCB, electricity generation, tried very hard to privatize health care, and probably a few other things I'm not aware of. These were all done on an idealogical basis, and whether or not one agrees with the general idea, the case was never made on any other basis. There were of course the usual government studies but these were largely post-facto justifications. (He had a very hard time getting a study supporting his de-regulation of electricity, but went ahead with it anyway. This was about the time California was having so much trouble.)
I should apologize for being snippy myself earlier. Alberta is sometimes referred to as Texas North, is largely dominated by large and small 'c' conservatives, and the oil boom has only increased the volume on the "as long as it makes a profit" speakers. A large minority see these policies as either being a part of the reason for the increase in certain social ills, or at least the lack of political will to deal with them effectively. Ralph Klein in particular was known for his cronyism and very close ties to private corporations; whether this was corruption or one of his charming quirks depends on who you talk to, but it wasn't exactly disputed.
If nothing else, you prodded me into a bit of research - never a bad thing;)
I'm actually not certain why or when it began. The introduction to the Fraser Institute paper indicates it was government run due to the potential impact of liquor on society, and this way it could be regulated more closely. (I should note that the Fraser Institute is known as being fairly right wing on social and economic issues, so I usually like to have secondary sources when referencing them, but I don't see any reason to doubt them on this or their ALCB numbers.)
It was a provincially run monopoly up until about ten years ago, and I believe all other provinces, possibly excepting Quebec, are still run by provincial governments. Some other provinces also have private vendors, though their main market is after hours sales. Alberta is now completely privatized.
The government in Alberta has been Conservative (somewhat like the Republicans, and moving further right in recent years) for several decades. Our last premier, Ralph Klein, was big on privatization. He de-regulated the ALCB, electricity generation, tried very hard to privatize health care, and probably a few other things I'm not aware of. These were all done on an idealogical basis, and whether or not one agrees with the general idea, the case was never made on any other basis. There were of course the usual government studies but these were largely post-facto justifications. (He had a very hard time getting a study supporting his de-regulation of electricity, but went ahead with it anyway. This was about the time California was having so much trouble.)
I should apologize for being snippy myself earlier. Alberta is sometimes referred to as Texas North, is largely dominated by large and small 'c' conservatives, and the oil boom has only increased the volume on the "as long as it makes a profit" speakers. A large minority see these policies as either being a part of the reason for the increase in certain social ills, or at least the lack of political will to deal with them effectively. Ralph Klein in particular was known for his cronyism and very close ties to private corporations; whether this was corruption or one of his charming quirks depends on who you talk to, but it wasn't exactly disputed.
If nothing else, you prodded me into a bit of research - never a bad thing;)
Yep, I shouldn't have extrapolated from a handful of stores that do have longer hours. Shortly after crossing the BC border, I came across one that was open near midnight, was a full liquor store, and I was surprised. This certainly isn't true everywhere. A friend explained to me how that works (there are special dispensations), but I'm afraid I don't recall.
However, according to a report I just found from the Fraser Institute (multiple versions here, prices in real dollars were (on average) 4% higher.
The paper is interesting, and by it's conclusions I'd say that whether privatization "worked" largely depends on what you prioritize - employment is up, selection and availability are up, wages are down, prices are up.
You can get good deals here (in Edmonton) as well, occasionally. Around holidays there are usually some loss leaders, and there are the big box liquor stores out in the 'burbs. The latter don't do me much good, though.
To be fair, it wasn't everywhere in BC that BCLB stores had night/weekend hours. A friend explained to me the regulations around that one, but I'm afraid I don't recall.
Interestingly, I just found a paper from the Fraser Institute (I usually like to find a second source to balance anything they put out, but lack the time today) after being prodded into it by another poster. It can be found here.
To summarize: there are more liquor stores, about twice the number of employees, larger selection of products, wages are about half what they were in real dollars and consumer prices are approximately 4% higher, on average.
To me that sounds like it either works or doesn't work, depending on what you prioritize. Figures;)
My point was that the ALCB was not being subsidized by taxpayer dollars, as you seemed to be asserting:
This is breathtakingly naive. *You are paying* for the availability and the relative "cheapness" of the government-subsidized liquor store... and so is everyone else, *even those who don't drink*
It wasn't just paying for itself, but contributing back to the budget, hence benefiting taxpayers.
Thinking about it, there may have been efficiency gains in that they controlled the full distribution chain, meaning fewer middle men.
Heck, I could even be wrong on this one - a fellow Albertan notes further down the chain that he thinks overall liquor has become cheaper. I still firmly stand by my assertion that government run is not inherently inefficient, and I'm rather tired of it being taken as an absolute truth, like gravity.
Perhaps you'd care to throw out something better that's privately run? Something like, say, Blackwater? If your definition of "works better" is "makes more money", I guess you'd be right, but I'm willing to bet there are a few civilians that would beg to differ, and some of those people in your own fine nation.
I certainly won't argue that our military hasn't been underfunded, but "almost non-functional" is hardly a fair or accurate assessment. That we have been able to maintain the foreign missions that we have and that our training appears to exceed that of many other friendly nations (at least based on performance in NATO exercises) seems to indicate that even under-funded, it performs quite well.
I don't think it became more expensive because of greater government efficiency, rather that their profit motive wasn't as strong. The ALCB (Alberta Liquor Control Board) was actually turning a profit when it was sold, but their mandate wasn't to maximize profit, whereas that's all that a private company is there for.
I guess you could think of profit as a kind of inefficiency in the system, though.
Seriously? Off the top of my head things that the Canadian gov't "gets right" (and I won't quibble over what the hell that means):
1) post office 2) fire department 3) law enforcement 4) military 5) liquor distribution
That's just a handful, and for the sake of discussion I'm leaving off a few high profile, controversial services that we'll just end up arguing about.
Here in Alberta, Canada, a couple that private corporations are busy screwing up:
1) electricity. This was de-regulated here a few years back, and prices sky rocketed nearly overnight.
2) liquor distribution. We handed it over to private enterprise and prices dropped. For a year. I just visited our neighbour, BC, where it is still government run, and they have as good availability (I was shocked to walk into a corner store at midnight and find that they had a fully stocked gov't liquor store open), and most items are a good 10% cheaper.
I don't actually have a problem with liquor distribution being privately run. It's not an essential service; but if the benchmark is "serving the consumer better", it failed.
I don't think having the government run everything would work out so well, but this canard that it's inherently inefficient and private enterprise always does it better has got to be put to bed.
There are still UT99 servers around? That's still one of my favorite takes on the genre. I miss Liandri Core.
I'm going to have to try finding a few good servers again. A friend of mine was on about (some FPS he's into) the other day, and he also maintained it was just a matter of finding the right game and the right server. I'm old and crotchety, so I may have just let myself get too cynical about online gaming over the years;)
Thanks for the Quake Wars recommendation. The canned message system sounds like a good idea, and the videos I found look like a lot of fun. I'll give it a go.
(And Halo, online? Bite your tongue! I did enjoy the single player, but you definitely called it about playing online. I wonder if staying away from games that have a console release would reduce the annoyance level.)
For all the misanthropic bitching, one of my favorite gaming moments was in Q2. One of the regulars announced in the middle of a map that he had to go because his wife was going into labour. Everything stopped long enough for a round of congratulations, and then the carnage began again. But for a brief moment, everything just stopped.
At any rate, you have bought a ray of hope to this chiseled gamers heart.
I used to spend a fair bit of time playing FPS (mostly Quake and UT) online. Shooting real, unpredictable people and having a bit of a rivalry is much more fun than taking it out on some lackluster AI.
I still play the same kind of games, but I haven't been online in years. Reason? The advent of voice integration. I don't mind playing against a bunch of immature 13 year olds, but I don't need to be continuously reminded of the fact by some snot-nosed momma's boy whining in my ear to stop circle strafing him. (Ok, that time it was funny.)
I know, you can turn off voice chat, but voice did help usher in a new era of team based games. I enjoy the extra strategy and team play of those, but you can't get by without the voice now. Even in an FPS, there's stuff going on on chat you need to know about.
If it all felt less like elementary school playground, I'd probably get into it again, at least occasionally.
where does the article say that *ALL* conservatives are would vote for this and *all* NDP, Bloc, Green and Liberals would vote against ?
MPs very rarely break party lines in Canada. The Harper government especially is known for strict party discipline. Additionally, with a minority government, it's even less likely that a bill tendered by the ruling party will be voted against by that party.
While it *may* indeed be horrible for DMCA opponents if/when it's drafted, this awful bill doesn't even exist yet and there's been no indication it's on the docket in the near future.
We've seen two versions of this already, so we have a pretty good idea what the next attempt will look like. Especially immediately after an election, on an issue not important enough (read: one which enough people don't know about) to trigger an election over.
disregard of public opinion on what? DMCA? The economy? the environment?
This Conservative government is known for only talking to the press in very controlled circumstances, having a "Harper dictates all" policy, rather than consulting party members, and making a huge percentage of bills votes of confidence (meaning if the opposition parties aren't willing to fight an election over it, it will pass.) This doesn't sound like a party that listens to the will of the people.
You're a (small 'c') conservative - that's fine. I think you're wrong, but democracy is all about dissent and differing opinions. It is also supposed to be about doing the will of the people, governing in a way that benefits the citizens rather than foreign corporations, with (if we're very, very lucky) a bit of truthful information thrown in. The current version of the Conservatives (and I voted PC back when Joe Clark ran things) is none of these things.
So "Science" really hasn't done itself much good here when it comes to trying to change things. Some might say, well, this is science,this is how it works. Well, if you don't have your facts straight, then stay the hell out of public policy because you will only make your self look like a fool.
This is, of course, a large part of the problem. It's difficult to communicate to people that science is not exact, that there is a lot of give and take, and that if you are waiting for absolute certainty before allowing science into a political discussion, we're going to have to go further back than Newton's Theory of Gravity before we can find anything that can be allowed in the public discourse.
And still, it's orders of magnitude better than not enjoying being called a glutton. We're going to need to face up to one thing here - we in the west have created a disproportionate amount of pollution and carbon emissions, if only by virtue of being the first to really start exploiting coal and oil. Whether you think that has had any influence on the health of the planet or not, I'd say it fits the spirit of "pigs and gluttons." Is it productive in a wider debate? Hard to say - sometimes people will only face up to the harsher realities when you really lay it on the line.
People have a tremendous ability to find ways of shoring up their emotional beliefs. One common one is to raise the bar to a level such that no scientific argument can meet their requirements, because science admits to the possibility of fault, and emotionalism does not.
Others are just very bad at evaluating their sources, and don't understand that Fox News or think tanks hired by petroleum companies can't be given the same weight as an international, non-partisan group of scientists.
I still maintain that science should inform and guide, not set, policy. It may be that the policies Al Gore would implement would cripple western economies. Personally, I suspect that they would help them more than hurt them. If you really want to get into an area with large disagreement and spurious arguments, though, economics is a pretty good place to look. But this is why the political forum needs to be the place where these things are decided, and why we need a well informed electorate.
I'm from Canada, and (at least when I was in school), we didn't have comparative religion either. Too bad, really, because it would have accelerated my recovery from evangelical indoctrination.
Aside from that, considering how much of human society is so strongly influenced by religion (pick your country, pick your religion) I think teaching it is essential to understanding how mankind works.
Of course, teaching _comparative_ religion means other religions get equal footing. That's a hard sell in Canada, and harder in the US.
I'm curious, where are you from that this is standard? I may want to move there. This demonstrates an unusual amount of tolerance.
Slashdot Mirror
I cannot believe I actually learned something good in this thread. Never heard of Steve Reich, but this is so my kinda coding music.
You and your reality. How are we supposed to get into a self-righteous, drill-baby-drill froth if we get accurate news?
We might consider letting you in if you learn to spell "colour" correctly, ditch that pansy baseball thing for a real sport called "hockey" and learn how to brew a decent beer.
Or a -1.
I love a good hoax as much as the next guy (the perl/python/parrot thing was great), but I dread April 1 every year now. Disabling every second news source on the planet for 24 hours leaves me with nothing to do but actual work.
...and as easy to navigate.
That was just sloppy/tired writing on my part. I use vim, but I get stuff from people who use Dreamweaver (and use it like a crutch, not like a development tool) and I am dying to make it a less painful activity for myself. Turning table infested layouts into code driven templates is as much fun as letting a monkey throw feces at you.
This is one of the reasons I think Sins of a Solar Empire looks interesting. One of the key parts of the game is different races with very different abilities.
Haven't had a chance to play it yet (so little time for gaming anymore...), but I'm definitely going to make time for this one. Might be worth a peek if you're into space based RTS's.
Perhaps you can answer something for me. I regularly get templates done in Dreamweaver (by someone who actually takes pride in the fact that he doesn't know HTML/CSS), and they are an absolute mess of tables, class="Default", inlined styles and such. I haven't looked at Dreamweaver in years (yay, vim!), but does it encourage this kind of behaviour? I was under the impression that you could actually create clean, standards compliant code with it. Is there a magic "don't create crap" option I can make him check? Or would he actually have to learn something?
-11? He's mooning the Earth?
I only manage myself, and I'm on a deadline, so the best thing I can probably do is point you to the blog of a genuinely smart manager, Rands in Repose.
Even though it's not really aimed at me, not being a manager, I still find at least a couple of things to take away from every entry.
More rank and file programmers should read this guy, too. Gives you a real insight into what is involved in the bigger picture. It will make you a better developer.
These make for great legends, but as much as I hate to admit it, I've gotten very serious about my work. Easter eggs are not generally appreciated by the Powers That Be, or by clients paying big cash for a product. My personal reputation, and producing a quality product have become important to me.
There's also the fact that that more code == more bugs. You can't get around that. Why open up a professional product and your reputation as a developer by making it more likely that you'll screw up?
I can see certain exceptions to this - for instance, games with easter eggs (approved, of course) can add to the charm of a product. An easter in egg in Quicken would be less cool.
(Bugger. Forgot I had HTML formatting on. Apologies for double posting.)
I'm actually not certain why or when it began. The introduction to the Fraser Institute paper indicates it was government run due to the potential impact of liquor on society, and this way it could be regulated more closely. (I should note that the Fraser Institute is known as being fairly right wing on social and economic issues, so I usually like to have secondary sources when referencing them, but I don't see any reason to doubt them on this or their ALCB numbers.)
It was a provincially run monopoly up until about ten years ago, and I believe all other provinces, possibly excepting Quebec, are still run by provincial governments. Some other provinces also have private vendors, though their main market is after hours sales. Alberta is now completely privatized.
The government in Alberta has been Conservative (somewhat like the Republicans, and moving further right in recent years) for several decades. Our last premier, Ralph Klein, was big on privatization. He de-regulated the ALCB, electricity generation, tried very hard to privatize health care, and probably a few other things I'm not aware of. These were all done on an idealogical basis, and whether or not one agrees with the general idea, the case was never made on any other basis. There were of course the usual government studies but these were largely post-facto justifications. (He had a very hard time getting a study supporting his de-regulation of electricity, but went ahead with it anyway. This was about the time California was having so much trouble.)
I should apologize for being snippy myself earlier. Alberta is sometimes referred to as Texas North, is largely dominated by large and small 'c' conservatives, and the oil boom has only increased the volume on the "as long as it makes a profit" speakers. A large minority see these policies as either being a part of the reason for the increase in certain social ills, or at least the lack of political will to deal with them effectively. Ralph Klein in particular was known for his cronyism and very close ties to private corporations; whether this was corruption or one of his charming quirks depends on who you talk to, but it wasn't exactly disputed.
If nothing else, you prodded me into a bit of research - never a bad thing ;)
I'm actually not certain why or when it began. The introduction to the Fraser Institute paper indicates it was government run due to the potential impact of liquor on society, and this way it could be regulated more closely. (I should note that the Fraser Institute is known as being fairly right wing on social and economic issues, so I usually like to have secondary sources when referencing them, but I don't see any reason to doubt them on this or their ALCB numbers.) It was a provincially run monopoly up until about ten years ago, and I believe all other provinces, possibly excepting Quebec, are still run by provincial governments. Some other provinces also have private vendors, though their main market is after hours sales. Alberta is now completely privatized. The government in Alberta has been Conservative (somewhat like the Republicans, and moving further right in recent years) for several decades. Our last premier, Ralph Klein, was big on privatization. He de-regulated the ALCB, electricity generation, tried very hard to privatize health care, and probably a few other things I'm not aware of. These were all done on an idealogical basis, and whether or not one agrees with the general idea, the case was never made on any other basis. There were of course the usual government studies but these were largely post-facto justifications. (He had a very hard time getting a study supporting his de-regulation of electricity, but went ahead with it anyway. This was about the time California was having so much trouble.) I should apologize for being snippy myself earlier. Alberta is sometimes referred to as Texas North, is largely dominated by large and small 'c' conservatives, and the oil boom has only increased the volume on the "as long as it makes a profit" speakers. A large minority see these policies as either being a part of the reason for the increase in certain social ills, or at least the lack of political will to deal with them effectively. Ralph Klein in particular was known for his cronyism and very close ties to private corporations; whether this was corruption or one of his charming quirks depends on who you talk to, but it wasn't exactly disputed. If nothing else, you prodded me into a bit of research - never a bad thing ;)
Yep, I shouldn't have extrapolated from a handful of stores that do have longer hours. Shortly after crossing the BC border, I came across one that was open near midnight, was a full liquor store, and I was surprised. This certainly isn't true everywhere. A friend explained to me how that works (there are special dispensations), but I'm afraid I don't recall.
However, according to a report I just found from the Fraser Institute (multiple versions here, prices in real dollars were (on average) 4% higher.
The paper is interesting, and by it's conclusions I'd say that whether privatization "worked" largely depends on what you prioritize - employment is up, selection and availability are up, wages are down, prices are up.
You can get good deals here (in Edmonton) as well, occasionally. Around holidays there are usually some loss leaders, and there are the big box liquor stores out in the 'burbs. The latter don't do me much good, though.
To be fair, it wasn't everywhere in BC that BCLB stores had night/weekend hours. A friend explained to me the regulations around that one, but I'm afraid I don't recall.
Interestingly, I just found a paper from the Fraser Institute (I usually like to find a second source to balance anything they put out, but lack the time today) after being prodded into it by another poster. It can be found here.
To summarize: there are more liquor stores, about twice the number of employees, larger selection of products, wages are about half what they were in real dollars and consumer prices are approximately 4% higher, on average.
To me that sounds like it either works or doesn't work, depending on what you prioritize. Figures ;)
My point was that the ALCB was not being subsidized by taxpayer dollars, as you seemed to be asserting:
It wasn't just paying for itself, but contributing back to the budget, hence benefiting taxpayers.
Thinking about it, there may have been efficiency gains in that they controlled the full distribution chain, meaning fewer middle men.
Heck, I could even be wrong on this one - a fellow Albertan notes further down the chain that he thinks overall liquor has become cheaper. I still firmly stand by my assertion that government run is not inherently inefficient, and I'm rather tired of it being taken as an absolute truth, like gravity.
Perhaps you'd care to throw out something better that's privately run? Something like, say, Blackwater? If your definition of "works better" is "makes more money", I guess you'd be right, but I'm willing to bet there are a few civilians that would beg to differ, and some of those people in your own fine nation.
I certainly won't argue that our military hasn't been underfunded, but "almost non-functional" is hardly a fair or accurate assessment. That we have been able to maintain the foreign missions that we have and that our training appears to exceed that of many other friendly nations (at least based on performance in NATO exercises) seems to indicate that even under-funded, it performs quite well.
I don't think it became more expensive because of greater government efficiency, rather that their profit motive wasn't as strong. The ALCB (Alberta Liquor Control Board) was actually turning a profit when it was sold, but their mandate wasn't to maximize profit, whereas that's all that a private company is there for.
I guess you could think of profit as a kind of inefficiency in the system, though.
Actually, when Alberta sold of the ALCB, it was turning a profit. Thank you for playing.
Seriously? Off the top of my head things that the Canadian gov't "gets right" (and I won't quibble over what the hell that means):
1) post office
2) fire department
3) law enforcement
4) military
5) liquor distribution
That's just a handful, and for the sake of discussion I'm leaving off a few high profile, controversial services that we'll just end up arguing about.
Here in Alberta, Canada, a couple that private corporations are busy screwing up:
1) electricity. This was de-regulated here a few years back, and prices sky rocketed nearly overnight.
2) liquor distribution. We handed it over to private enterprise and prices dropped. For a year. I just visited our neighbour, BC, where it is still government run, and they have as good availability (I was shocked to walk into a corner store at midnight and find that they had a fully stocked gov't liquor store open), and most items are a good 10% cheaper.
I don't actually have a problem with liquor distribution being privately run. It's not an essential service; but if the benchmark is "serving the consumer better", it failed.
I don't think having the government run everything would work out so well, but this canard that it's inherently inefficient and private enterprise always does it better has got to be put to bed.
There are still UT99 servers around? That's still one of my favorite takes on the genre. I miss Liandri Core.
I'm going to have to try finding a few good servers again. A friend of mine was on about (some FPS he's into) the other day, and he also maintained it was just a matter of finding the right game and the right server. I'm old and crotchety, so I may have just let myself get too cynical about online gaming over the years ;)
Thanks for the Quake Wars recommendation. The canned message system sounds like a good idea, and the videos I found look like a lot of fun. I'll give it a go.
(And Halo, online? Bite your tongue! I did enjoy the single player, but you definitely called it about playing online. I wonder if staying away from games that have a console release would reduce the annoyance level.)
For all the misanthropic bitching, one of my favorite gaming moments was in Q2. One of the regulars announced in the middle of a map that he had to go because his wife was going into labour. Everything stopped long enough for a round of congratulations, and then the carnage began again. But for a brief moment, everything just stopped.
At any rate, you have bought a ray of hope to this chiseled gamers heart.
I used to spend a fair bit of time playing FPS (mostly Quake and UT) online. Shooting real, unpredictable people and having a bit of a rivalry is much more fun than taking it out on some lackluster AI.
I still play the same kind of games, but I haven't been online in years. Reason? The advent of voice integration. I don't mind playing against a bunch of immature 13 year olds, but I don't need to be continuously reminded of the fact by some snot-nosed momma's boy whining in my ear to stop circle strafing him. (Ok, that time it was funny.)
I know, you can turn off voice chat, but voice did help usher in a new era of team based games. I enjoy the extra strategy and team play of those, but you can't get by without the voice now. Even in an FPS, there's stuff going on on chat you need to know about.
If it all felt less like elementary school playground, I'd probably get into it again, at least occasionally.
MPs very rarely break party lines in Canada. The Harper government especially is known for strict party discipline. Additionally, with a minority government, it's even less likely that a bill tendered by the ruling party will be voted against by that party.
We've seen two versions of this already, so we have a pretty good idea what the next attempt will look like. Especially immediately after an election, on an issue not important enough (read: one which enough people don't know about) to trigger an election over.
This Conservative government is known for only talking to the press in very controlled circumstances, having a "Harper dictates all" policy, rather than consulting party members, and making a huge percentage of bills votes of confidence (meaning if the opposition parties aren't willing to fight an election over it, it will pass.) This doesn't sound like a party that listens to the will of the people.
You're a (small 'c') conservative - that's fine. I think you're wrong, but democracy is all about dissent and differing opinions. It is also supposed to be about doing the will of the people, governing in a way that benefits the citizens rather than foreign corporations, with (if we're very, very lucky) a bit of truthful information thrown in. The current version of the Conservatives (and I voted PC back when Joe Clark ran things) is none of these things.
This is, of course, a large part of the problem. It's difficult to communicate to people that science is not exact, that there is a lot of give and take, and that if you are waiting for absolute certainty before allowing science into a political discussion, we're going to have to go further back than Newton's Theory of Gravity before we can find anything that can be allowed in the public discourse.
And still, it's orders of magnitude better than not enjoying being called a glutton. We're going to need to face up to one thing here - we in the west have created a disproportionate amount of pollution and carbon emissions, if only by virtue of being the first to really start exploiting coal and oil. Whether you think that has had any influence on the health of the planet or not, I'd say it fits the spirit of "pigs and gluttons." Is it productive in a wider debate? Hard to say - sometimes people will only face up to the harsher realities when you really lay it on the line.
People have a tremendous ability to find ways of shoring up their emotional beliefs. One common one is to raise the bar to a level such that no scientific argument can meet their requirements, because science admits to the possibility of fault, and emotionalism does not.
Others are just very bad at evaluating their sources, and don't understand that Fox News or think tanks hired by petroleum companies can't be given the same weight as an international, non-partisan group of scientists.
I still maintain that science should inform and guide, not set, policy. It may be that the policies Al Gore would implement would cripple western economies. Personally, I suspect that they would help them more than hurt them. If you really want to get into an area with large disagreement and spurious arguments, though, economics is a pretty good place to look. But this is why the political forum needs to be the place where these things are decided, and why we need a well informed electorate.
I'm from Canada, and (at least when I was in school), we didn't have comparative religion either. Too bad, really, because it would have accelerated my recovery from evangelical indoctrination.
Aside from that, considering how much of human society is so strongly influenced by religion (pick your country, pick your religion) I think teaching it is essential to understanding how mankind works.
Of course, teaching _comparative_ religion means other religions get equal footing. That's a hard sell in Canada, and harder in the US.
I'm curious, where are you from that this is standard? I may want to move there. This demonstrates an unusual amount of tolerance.