So you're not saying you want bad things to happen to people.
You're saying that you know more about what's good for people's lives then they do themselves. Because you're one of the elite folks with all the knowledge -- almost like you're a parent and everyone else is a child, so you should get to make decisions for the rest of us.
We're too stupid to know what's best for us and we're lucky to have you.
Consider not only the impact of drilling, but other unforseen consequences. *cough*VALDEZ*cough*
Guess what? The area is completely recovered from that incident. The worst thing you can possibly think of happened, and the long-term affects are basically zero.
There are lots of new safeguards too.
But none of this matters. I'm guessing your position isn't based on reason at all.
How about, not worth the measly drop by $0.50USD/barrel according to USDOE?
That's more than 5% of the cost of a barrel of oil. I bought $40 worth of gas today. 5% of that is $2. That's significant.
Ah, I see. Land has no intrinsic value unless it makes for a good holiday. Interesting argument.
If ANWR is left exactly as it is, it helps no one. No help means no value.
How about the impact on polar bears, arctic foxes and the millions of migratory birds that you didn't mention? The drilling pipelines plus the roads would weave a network across the area. The caribou calving grounds are there as well, as you mentioned.
How about them? There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the kind of drilling that is being planned in ANWR is bad for animals.
The anti-ANWR-drilling people simply want humans to be poorer and lead worse lives so that animals can be happy. And they're not even right about that because the animals won't be affected.
I prefer things be better for humans. Even if it means the caribou have to walk an extra 300 meters to the next patch of wasteland for their calving.
If the trend towards higher fuel efficiency had continued instead of reversing I don't see exactly how that would have made anyone poorer.
People would have had to buy fuel efficient cars instead of the cars they actually wanted. Or they'd have to pay a lot more for a more advanced version of the same car.
When you pay more for the same thing, or when you pay the same and get less for your money, you're poorer.
I'll support these outrageous gas prices if they're finally high enough to make people rethink their horribly inefficient daily commutes. I find it wrong that there is such a huge flow of cars going back and forth every single day.
People commute because it's the most efficient option for them. If they'd be better off with some other option, they'd do that instead. People care about what makes their lives better or worse -- a lot more than you care about them anyway.
What you're saying is that you want people to become worse and worse off until they are forced to accept an inferior option that doesn't involve commuting in their cars. They'll lead worse lives with less happiness and more poverty, but a least you'll get what you want.
Because people can still afford to drive, and driving is still a lot better than riding a bus for most people. Folks aren't going to take the bus when driving is still a lot better.
How much poorer should we have made ourselves over the course of the last 30 years so we wouldn't have to pay so much for gas in this current 3-month period?
When you say "worth it", presumably you mean "worth the cost". What cost?
When was your last vacation in ANWR? How about your friends? Their friends? Anyone you've heard about in the news vacationing there? Anyone planning to vacation there?
ANWR is a wasteland. It's only fit for mosquitoes and reindeer and the reindeer aren't particularly bothered by oil drilling.
You know, I don't think we've seen so much as a drop of oil out of Iraq. From what I've heard, China and Vietnam are the ones getting the contracts.
Oil is a world market and all oil everywhere is essentially identical. There's no reason to add extra transportation cost to oil.
That's why oil from Alaska gets sold to Japan and the far east instead of being shipped to New York. It's cheaper to sell it in Japan and use the money to buy more in Mexico than it is to ship it to NY via the Panama Canal.
All the arguments about who gets what oil from where are silly. If we stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia, then we have to buy more from Russia or somewhere else. And the guys in India (or where ever) who were buying from Russia will buy it from Saudi Arabia. Prices will be higher by the amount of the extra transportation costs, but Saudi Arabia still gets essentially the same amount of money.
If anyone gets Iraq's oil, folks around the world benefit because the world price of oil goes down. More importantly, the people of Iraq now have the chance to benefit too.
Such high prices in Europe does not hurt the European standard of living because many Europeans use public transportation...
Public transportation is inferior to driving your own car. Public transportation doesn't run on your schedule and doesn't go exactly where you want to go.
Having to use an inferior method of transport is clearly an indication of a lower standard of living. Folks in the USA who can't afford to buy or operate a car are left with public transportation as their only option.
Ask folks who can't afford a car if they'd rather have free use of a car with free gas for 5 years, or whether they'd rather have free public transportation for 5 years. Which one will they choose?
Folks who can easily afford to drive will tend to prefer to drive. There are some people who don't, but their attachment to public transportation is a quasi-religious one. They have decided to make themselves worse off -- to lower their standard of living -- knowingly.
It's not connected to the amount of petrol you consume.
A tax of 38-60 cents per gallon is clearly tied to the amount consumed. (A gallon is 3.78 litres.)
Worse, a lot of the cost of using petrol isn't even being paid at the moment, it's being deferred.
This assertion is unsupported and seems false. I assert the contrary.
If petrol cost the same in the USA as it does in much of the rest of the world...
...that would be bad for the USA. We have our own problems. We don't need to add more problems and make everyone poorer just to have something in common with other places.
Real journalists tend to conduct the most worthless, uninformative interviews. Have you ever read an interview about a game before? The journalist hasn't played the game. The questions are extremely generic because the journalist doesn't have a clue.
Journalists are some of the least-informed, least-interesting, least-curious people. If they don't care about the subject of the interview, you get PR drivel. If they do care, they are biased and not objective and after the interview is edited, you basically get the journalist's spin rather than information.
These interviews were good because the interviewer cared about the answers and the subject.
It's pretty easy to criticize when things go wrong. But in order for something like an MMO to be completed and succeed, a tremendous number of things need to go right. And even when that happens, like with Everquest 2 (which is a fun, profitable game), you still get criticized.
Vanguard had a lot of problems, but if you actually read all the interviews, the core of their problems seems to be excess optimism. They tried to create the end-all and be-all MMO, and they didn't have what it took to succeed.
They didn't have the money or time to achieve their vision. And they didn't have the discipline to narrow their vision to fit the resources they had.
A lot of the rest of their problems seem to be less significant (or facets of the lack of discipline). You can say Brad ought to have been in the office at some events, but that doesn't make any money change hands. Employees' feelings don't make an MMO succeed. Hype doesn't make a bad game good or an over-hyped game bad. The practical things are the ones that matter.
Here's what I don't understand: Why not just search through Microsoft's patent portfolio and find the patents they are talking about?
How many patents can Microsoft possibly have? 1000? 5000?
There's a lot of money in Linux. Surely someone would pay folks for this search. It wouldn't be fun, but it could be done.
Or if it were a community effort, it seems like it could easily be done. Everyone pick a Microsoft patent and write a short report on why Linux doesn't infringe it. If there's any doubt, flag it for someone with more expertise. Most of them could be eliminated a short time.
You don't understand. He'll still know the lights are on, even if he can't see them. It causes him stress. Things aren't the way he wants them.
The only solution that will be acceptable is for every designer of hardware to design stuff the way he likes it. And do it now. Because he's important and his opinions matter.
Perhaps people should evaluate things as they come instead of making blanket assumptions?
I agree. But "evaluate" suggests making a judgment. Judgment -- the type of judgment that requires actual thought -- is out of style. Acting on emotion is the replacement.
And emotions are tuned by media manipulation (example: period of time Abu Ghraib photos were displayed on the news vs. period of time WTC collapse was shown).
"Respect for authority" is anachronistic. Authority figures may have been more respectable at one point in the past. But being respectable is out of style. The new route to authority is by making shallow emotional appeals.
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Perfection is elusive.
Actually, certain taxes are different. Taxing gas to pay for road construction is more-or-less a pay-per-use system. It's not irrational at all.
Taxing property to pay for a fire department to protect property is similar.
Lots of taxes make sense and lots of others don't.
So you're not saying you want bad things to happen to people.
You're saying that you know more about what's good for people's lives then they do themselves. Because you're one of the elite folks with all the knowledge -- almost like you're a parent and everyone else is a child, so you should get to make decisions for the rest of us.
We're too stupid to know what's best for us and we're lucky to have you.
Also, I should add
Consider not only the impact of drilling, but other unforseen consequences. *cough*VALDEZ*cough*
Guess what? The area is completely recovered from that incident. The worst thing you can possibly think of happened, and the long-term affects are basically zero.
There are lots of new safeguards too.
But none of this matters. I'm guessing your position isn't based on reason at all.
How about, not worth the measly drop by $0.50USD/barrel according to USDOE?
That's more than 5% of the cost of a barrel of oil. I bought $40 worth of gas today. 5% of that is $2. That's significant.
Ah, I see. Land has no intrinsic value unless it makes for a good holiday. Interesting argument.
If ANWR is left exactly as it is, it helps no one. No help means no value.
How about the impact on polar bears, arctic foxes and the millions of migratory birds that you didn't mention? The drilling pipelines plus the roads would weave a network across the area. The caribou calving grounds are there as well, as you mentioned.
How about them? There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the kind of drilling that is being planned in ANWR is bad for animals.
The anti-ANWR-drilling people simply want humans to be poorer and lead worse lives so that animals can be happy. And they're not even right about that because the animals won't be affected.
I prefer things be better for humans. Even if it means the caribou have to walk an extra 300 meters to the next patch of wasteland for their calving.
If the trend towards higher fuel efficiency had continued instead of reversing I don't see exactly how that would have made anyone poorer.
People would have had to buy fuel efficient cars instead of the cars they actually wanted. Or they'd have to pay a lot more for a more advanced version of the same car.
When you pay more for the same thing, or when you pay the same and get less for your money, you're poorer.
I'll support these outrageous gas prices if they're finally high enough to make people rethink their horribly inefficient daily commutes. I find it wrong that there is such a huge flow of cars going back and forth every single day.
People commute because it's the most efficient option for them. If they'd be better off with some other option, they'd do that instead. People care about what makes their lives better or worse -- a lot more than you care about them anyway.
What you're saying is that you want people to become worse and worse off until they are forced to accept an inferior option that doesn't involve commuting in their cars. They'll lead worse lives with less happiness and more poverty, but a least you'll get what you want.
So why hasn't the most easy idea caught on?
Because people can still afford to drive, and driving is still a lot better than riding a bus for most people. Folks aren't going to take the bus when driving is still a lot better.
Oil is about the same price as it was when gas was $2.50. It's a refining issue and an ethanol issue and a tax issue, not really an oil price issue.
I don't understand what you're getting at.
How much poorer should we have made ourselves over the course of the last 30 years so we wouldn't have to pay so much for gas in this current 3-month period?
Now if either of you would back up your assertions with facts or something, then we could have a genuine discussion.
Personally, I don't think it's worth it
When you say "worth it", presumably you mean "worth the cost". What cost?
When was your last vacation in ANWR? How about your friends? Their friends? Anyone you've heard about in the news vacationing there? Anyone planning to vacation there?
ANWR is a wasteland. It's only fit for mosquitoes and reindeer and the reindeer aren't particularly bothered by oil drilling.
You know, I don't think we've seen so much as a drop of oil out of Iraq. From what I've heard, China and Vietnam are the ones getting the contracts.
Oil is a world market and all oil everywhere is essentially identical. There's no reason to add extra transportation cost to oil.
That's why oil from Alaska gets sold to Japan and the far east instead of being shipped to New York. It's cheaper to sell it in Japan and use the money to buy more in Mexico than it is to ship it to NY via the Panama Canal.
All the arguments about who gets what oil from where are silly. If we stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia, then we have to buy more from Russia or somewhere else. And the guys in India (or where ever) who were buying from Russia will buy it from Saudi Arabia. Prices will be higher by the amount of the extra transportation costs, but Saudi Arabia still gets essentially the same amount of money.
If anyone gets Iraq's oil, folks around the world benefit because the world price of oil goes down. More importantly, the people of Iraq now have the chance to benefit too.
Public transportation is inferior to driving your own car. Public transportation doesn't run on your schedule and doesn't go exactly where you want to go.
Having to use an inferior method of transport is clearly an indication of a lower standard of living. Folks in the USA who can't afford to buy or operate a car are left with public transportation as their only option.
Ask folks who can't afford a car if they'd rather have free use of a car with free gas for 5 years, or whether they'd rather have free public transportation for 5 years. Which one will they choose?
Folks who can easily afford to drive will tend to prefer to drive. There are some people who don't, but their attachment to public transportation is a quasi-religious one. They have decided to make themselves worse off -- to lower their standard of living -- knowingly.
A tax of 38-60 cents per gallon is clearly tied to the amount consumed. (A gallon is 3.78 litres.)
Worse, a lot of the cost of using petrol isn't even being paid at the moment, it's being deferred.
This assertion is unsupported and seems false. I assert the contrary.
If petrol cost the same in the USA as it does in much of the rest of the world...
...that would be bad for the USA. We have our own problems. We don't need to add more problems and make everyone poorer just to have something in common with other places.
Real journalists tend to conduct the most worthless, uninformative interviews. Have you ever read an interview about a game before? The journalist hasn't played the game. The questions are extremely generic because the journalist doesn't have a clue.
Journalists are some of the least-informed, least-interesting, least-curious people. If they don't care about the subject of the interview, you get PR drivel. If they do care, they are biased and not objective and after the interview is edited, you basically get the journalist's spin rather than information.
These interviews were good because the interviewer cared about the answers and the subject.
The fact that they had one QA person didn't make the game a failure. The things that made the game a failure led to them only having one QA person.
Brad explained this in his interview. Focusing on only having 1 QA person misses the big picture.
You're right about the bad management though.
It's pretty easy to criticize when things go wrong. But in order for something like an MMO to be completed and succeed, a tremendous number of things need to go right. And even when that happens, like with Everquest 2 (which is a fun, profitable game), you still get criticized.
Vanguard had a lot of problems, but if you actually read all the interviews, the core of their problems seems to be excess optimism. They tried to create the end-all and be-all MMO, and they didn't have what it took to succeed.
They didn't have the money or time to achieve their vision. And they didn't have the discipline to narrow their vision to fit the resources they had.
A lot of the rest of their problems seem to be less significant (or facets of the lack of discipline). You can say Brad ought to have been in the office at some events, but that doesn't make any money change hands. Employees' feelings don't make an MMO succeed. Hype doesn't make a bad game good or an over-hyped game bad. The practical things are the ones that matter.
Here's what I don't understand: Why not just search through Microsoft's patent portfolio and find the patents they are talking about?
How many patents can Microsoft possibly have? 1000? 5000?
There's a lot of money in Linux. Surely someone would pay folks for this search. It wouldn't be fun, but it could be done.
Or if it were a community effort, it seems like it could easily be done. Everyone pick a Microsoft patent and write a short report on why Linux doesn't infringe it. If there's any doubt, flag it for someone with more expertise. Most of them could be eliminated a short time.
I thought we already knew that hurricanes happen because George Bush doesn't care about black people.
That's why they were effected with a bow shock.
You're supposed to do your saving throws with a 20-sided die. You'll never save against anything with a tetrahedron.
...at one time we were even discussing adding a little switch besides every light and led so he can switch it off...
Can you make those little switches light up green when they are turned on and red when they're turned off? Thx.
You don't understand. He'll still know the lights are on, even if he can't see them. It causes him stress. Things aren't the way he wants them.
The only solution that will be acceptable is for every designer of hardware to design stuff the way he likes it. And do it now. Because he's important and his opinions matter.
Perhaps people should evaluate things as they come instead of making blanket assumptions?
I agree. But "evaluate" suggests making a judgment. Judgment -- the type of judgment that requires actual thought -- is out of style. Acting on emotion is the replacement.
And emotions are tuned by media manipulation (example: period of time Abu Ghraib photos were displayed on the news vs. period of time WTC collapse was shown).
"Respect for authority" is anachronistic. Authority figures may have been more respectable at one point in the past. But being respectable is out of style. The new route to authority is by making shallow emotional appeals.