The number of paid Alpha's, premium content, several Beta's (Beta Premium!) is unbelievable and they seem to want to make me wait until the very day of release before I get anything out of my backing unless I pay more money.
Why is it unbelievable? You will get the product when it is released, presumably that's the level that you backed it at. They just don't want to give stuff away for free that others have paid for.
DB has said that they will release the galaxy server data in the event that they have to take the servers offline, so that the game will still be playable in another 30 years' time even if they go down the tubes.
Because their immune systems have got used to the pathogen, and ours haven't? We carry plenty of diseases that our ancestors would have died of, but we've evolved to survive them. There's no silver bullet here.
There are "planets". 8 of them. Then, there are a bunch of "dwarf planets" - Pluto, Ceres, Eris, etc. "Minor planets" - there are thousands, millions, I'm not sure, but a lot of these. "Exoplanets", let's divide these into two categories - system exoplanets, that orbit a star like our planets, dwarf planets, and minor planets, and systemless exoplanets that do not orbit a star. These are all different kinds of planet. In astronomical terminology, the word "planet" by itself is reserved for the Big Eight, but all these other things are a kind of planet.
The money's gone. It was given to the previous generation. How do you stop a pension system where each generation pays for the previous one, without one generation getting a raw deal (they paid for the previous generation, but don't get anything themselves)?
Because it can cause embarrassment to the company to admit that their software is in peril. Maybe this guy doesn't have the authority to make announcements to the public on behalf of his employer.
That's not an ethical issue, it's a moral issue. I see no ethical difference between a sperm and egg that have not combined, and a sperm and egg that have combined and undergone a small number of cell divisions. In my opinion, until it has neurons that are firing, there's no ethical dimension.
If you sincerely believe what you said then it's high time for YOU to be on the receiving end of a proper trolling, and not the silly childish trolling you'd get on a brief 4chan thread, but the kind we're talking about. Your tune will change right quick once you understand what we're talking about.
No, he probably won't, because a rape threat to a man is very different to a rape threat to a woman. Just like a racial slur levelled at a white person is very different to a racial slur levelled at a black person, and an mental capacity jibe against a neurotypical person is easier to ignore than one at an autistic, cerebral palsy, or downs syndrome person. In all three cases the first is easy to brush off and ignore, the second not so easy.
Not all segregation is sexist. Women-only gyms, all-girls schools, female sports teams and competitions, none of these are ghettoes that women are forced into.
I know that "public" has opposite meanings in the UK and US, but I didn't know "private" did. Her school is independent, as in not state-owned. It's a charity. And I don't see why it's ironic. "Girls should have the right to get an education" and "Education should only be provided by the state" are two entirely orthogonal statements.
Really? Then burn a Koran on national TV right now...
Oh wait... then the extremist muslims have won.
Where did that come from, and what does it have to do with women being attacked just for being women on gaming forums? "If you want to have the right to campaign to get Jane Austen on British banknotes, then you also have to be prepared to burn a Koran" is something of a non-sequitur.
Sexism is just a tool that the trolls use where appropriate. It's all about personal power. For example, one of the trolls sent to jail for harrassing Caroline Criado-Perez was a woman.
You take basic precautions and do your best to avoid being a target. As to who is more or less likely to be a target? Anyone being obnoxious tends to get some focus.
I disagree. If a small group of trolls are being trolls, and you "do your best to avoid being a target", they've won. A small group of trolls have had a chilling effect. We need to do more to uncover and punish that kind of behaviour. And, was Kathy being obnoxious when she was targetted? I don't see any evidence of that, and even if she was, I don't care. That's no excuse for death and rape threats. The thing that astonished me most about trolling is, there was a case over here (UK) where someone was targetted with rape threats for organizing a campaign to get a woman onto our banknotes, and one of the trolls sent to jail for it was a woman. Which tells me it's nothing to do with sexism, and all about personal power. Sexual threats are just a tool in the box.
Knowledge of a variety of programming languages, even if some of them are dead, will always help. Even if it's just in "I remember when Perl was still a thing" bragging competitions.
Sure, I agree, I'm just explaining where the attitude comes from. If global warming really is the threat that some people believe to be, then the danger may seem to be too great to be calm and polite about. And that doesn't help, because as you say if you act like a raving loonie then people will treat you as a raving loonie. It doesn't get the job done. "We", those of us who think that warming is a real threat, have to take the risk of taking a softly softly approach to addressing a desperately dangerous threat. And that's difficult. Put any animal in a life-threatening situation, and the instinct is to bare the teeth and snarl.
Some people like to make a big deal over languages dying, particularly if the language is one that they never really liked. I say, why make a fuss? Sure, some languages will decrease in popularity, but they're still there to use if you want, and there will always be a die-hard community of fans that keep it alive. Why hold a big whoop-de-doo circus to celebrate the ebb and flow of language popularity?
Yes, the historical (archaeological?) data does show that CO2 levels rise after warming, but that in no way disproves that CO2 also causes warming. If the permafrost melts, and if the methane hydrates on the sea bed are released by ocean warming, then that will release an enormous amount of trapped CO2, so yes, warming caused by greenhouse gas is predicted to also cause CO2 release. No contradiction there.
As long as you claim that, and you're right. It's a tough call, I admit. And, the only reason that I don't support such measures is the George Carlin theory - the planet will be fine. Better off without us, probably, so if we trash ourselves through stupidity, then so be it.
Could be free as soon as 2010 or 2015, as against the 2050 that the IPCC had forecast. Sure, it's not as bad as the very very worst possibility that one expert has warned. We're not out of the woods yet.
This is how science happens. You study, you theorise, you predict, you measure, you GOTO 10. If you don't publish your predicitons, then nobody learns and science cannot progress, especially in a long term field like climatology. We may well not know what the truth is behind CO2 and AGW until well past my lifetime. But if scientists don't publish their results, then we cannot learn anything. And some of those results will be extreme worst case predicitons, and most of those by definition will be proven to be false. And that's a good thing, as long as we don't rush blindly in the opposite direction whenever one worst case scenario fails to happen.
Who is to say when this period we're so familiar with ends, our fault or not?
If and when it ends, it will end for reasons. There will be some set of physical processes that drive the cycle or rhythm or rollercoaster or whatever you want to call it. We're trying to figure out what those processes are, and we've discovered that CO2 in the atmosphere seems to be having a bad effect as far as our comfort is concerned. So, I guess, scientists will be those who say when it ends, if we let them figure it out, and right now most scientists are saying that too much CO2 is a bad thing. Sure, there was tons of CO2 and maybe no ice caps in the cretaceous period, and maybe if we increase the CO2 we can grow to be the size of dinosaurs, or maybe elephants will take over the world, but I'm not keen on either of those outcomes. I don't want to be cretaceous, they didn't have iPhones.
Slashdot Mirror
The number of paid Alpha's, premium content, several Beta's (Beta Premium!) is unbelievable and they seem to want to make me wait until the very day of release before I get anything out of my backing unless I pay more money.
Why is it unbelievable? You will get the product when it is released, presumably that's the level that you backed it at. They just don't want to give stuff away for free that others have paid for.
DB has said that they will release the galaxy server data in the event that they have to take the servers offline, so that the game will still be playable in another 30 years' time even if they go down the tubes.
If they called it "Windows", do you think they would last a nanosecond before the orbital lawyers opened fire?
Because their immune systems have got used to the pathogen, and ours haven't? We carry plenty of diseases that our ancestors would have died of, but we've evolved to survive them. There's no silver bullet here.
Oh, and its obviously legal to play them now.
How come? Has the Internet Archive negotiated permission with all the copyright holders for all these games?
There are "planets". 8 of them.
Then, there are a bunch of "dwarf planets" - Pluto, Ceres, Eris, etc.
"Minor planets" - there are thousands, millions, I'm not sure, but a lot of these.
"Exoplanets", let's divide these into two categories - system exoplanets, that orbit a star like our planets, dwarf planets, and minor planets, and systemless exoplanets that do not orbit a star.
These are all different kinds of planet. In astronomical terminology, the word "planet" by itself is reserved for the Big Eight, but all these other things are a kind of planet.
The money's gone. It was given to the previous generation. How do you stop a pension system where each generation pays for the previous one, without one generation getting a raw deal (they paid for the previous generation, but don't get anything themselves)?
My dad and I wrote a BBC BASIC interpreter for PC-DOS. I'll have to dig it out and see if I can get this working in it.
Who is Steve Job?
Because it can cause embarrassment to the company to admit that their software is in peril. Maybe this guy doesn't have the authority to make announcements to the public on behalf of his employer.
That's not an ethical issue, it's a moral issue. I see no ethical difference between a sperm and egg that have not combined, and a sperm and egg that have combined and undergone a small number of cell divisions. In my opinion, until it has neurons that are firing, there's no ethical dimension.
If you sincerely believe what you said then it's high time for YOU to be on the receiving end of a proper trolling, and not the silly childish trolling you'd get on a brief 4chan thread, but the kind we're talking about. Your tune will change right quick once you understand what we're talking about.
No, he probably won't, because a rape threat to a man is very different to a rape threat to a woman. Just like a racial slur levelled at a white person is very different to a racial slur levelled at a black person, and an mental capacity jibe against a neurotypical person is easier to ignore than one at an autistic, cerebral palsy, or downs syndrome person. In all three cases the first is easy to brush off and ignore, the second not so easy.
Not all segregation is sexist. Women-only gyms, all-girls schools, female sports teams and competitions, none of these are ghettoes that women are forced into.
I know that "public" has opposite meanings in the UK and US, but I didn't know "private" did. Her school is independent, as in not state-owned. It's a charity. And I don't see why it's ironic. "Girls should have the right to get an education" and "Education should only be provided by the state" are two entirely orthogonal statements.
Really? Then burn a Koran on national TV right now...
Oh wait... then the extremist muslims have won.
Where did that come from, and what does it have to do with women being attacked just for being women on gaming forums? "If you want to have the right to campaign to get Jane Austen on British banknotes, then you also have to be prepared to burn a Koran" is something of a non-sequitur.
Sexism is just a tool that the trolls use where appropriate. It's all about personal power. For example, one of the trolls sent to jail for harrassing Caroline Criado-Perez was a woman.
You take basic precautions and do your best to avoid being a target. As to who is more or less likely to be a target? Anyone being obnoxious tends to get some focus.
I disagree. If a small group of trolls are being trolls, and you "do your best to avoid being a target", they've won. A small group of trolls have had a chilling effect. We need to do more to uncover and punish that kind of behaviour. And, was Kathy being obnoxious when she was targetted? I don't see any evidence of that, and even if she was, I don't care. That's no excuse for death and rape threats.
The thing that astonished me most about trolling is, there was a case over here (UK) where someone was targetted with rape threats for organizing a campaign to get a woman onto our banknotes, and one of the trolls sent to jail for it was a woman. Which tells me it's nothing to do with sexism, and all about personal power. Sexual threats are just a tool in the box.
Knowledge of a variety of programming languages, even if some of them are dead, will always help. Even if it's just in "I remember when Perl was still a thing" bragging competitions.
Sure, I agree, I'm just explaining where the attitude comes from. If global warming really is the threat that some people believe to be, then the danger may seem to be too great to be calm and polite about. And that doesn't help, because as you say if you act like a raving loonie then people will treat you as a raving loonie. It doesn't get the job done. "We", those of us who think that warming is a real threat, have to take the risk of taking a softly softly approach to addressing a desperately dangerous threat. And that's difficult. Put any animal in a life-threatening situation, and the instinct is to bare the teeth and snarl.
Some people like to make a big deal over languages dying, particularly if the language is one that they never really liked. I say, why make a fuss? Sure, some languages will decrease in popularity, but they're still there to use if you want, and there will always be a die-hard community of fans that keep it alive. Why hold a big whoop-de-doo circus to celebrate the ebb and flow of language popularity?
s/Chimpanzees/Humans/;
Yes, the historical (archaeological?) data does show that CO2 levels rise after warming, but that in no way disproves that CO2 also causes warming. If the permafrost melts, and if the methane hydrates on the sea bed are released by ocean warming, then that will release an enormous amount of trapped CO2, so yes, warming caused by greenhouse gas is predicted to also cause CO2 release. No contradiction there.
As long as you claim that, and you're right. It's a tough call, I admit. And, the only reason that I don't support such measures is the George Carlin theory - the planet will be fine. Better off without us, probably, so if we trash ourselves through stupidity, then so be it.
Could be free as soon as 2010 or 2015, as against the 2050 that the IPCC had forecast. Sure, it's not as bad as the very very worst possibility that one expert has warned. We're not out of the woods yet.
This is how science happens. You study, you theorise, you predict, you measure, you GOTO 10. If you don't publish your predicitons, then nobody learns and science cannot progress, especially in a long term field like climatology. We may well not know what the truth is behind CO2 and AGW until well past my lifetime. But if scientists don't publish their results, then we cannot learn anything. And some of those results will be extreme worst case predicitons, and most of those by definition will be proven to be false. And that's a good thing, as long as we don't rush blindly in the opposite direction whenever one worst case scenario fails to happen.
Who is to say when this period we're so familiar with ends, our fault or not?
If and when it ends, it will end for reasons. There will be some set of physical processes that drive the cycle or rhythm or rollercoaster or whatever you want to call it. We're trying to figure out what those processes are, and we've discovered that CO2 in the atmosphere seems to be having a bad effect as far as our comfort is concerned. So, I guess, scientists will be those who say when it ends, if we let them figure it out, and right now most scientists are saying that too much CO2 is a bad thing. Sure, there was tons of CO2 and maybe no ice caps in the cretaceous period, and maybe if we increase the CO2 we can grow to be the size of dinosaurs, or maybe elephants will take over the world, but I'm not keen on either of those outcomes. I don't want to be cretaceous, they didn't have iPhones.