If you are faced with such dramatic and irrevocable choices, clearly you are not so much playing a game as "following a script".
In a game - like say chess, Oblivion or EVE Online, the real firm choices are made at the beginning - what color do you want to play? What race do you want to be?
The rest of the experience is a cumulative result of many little decisions that have minor consequences but are not necessarily game changing in themselves.
Taking a pawn or losing a pawn will usually not cost you the game. But lose enough pawns and you'll get enemy pieces in your rear. You don't HAVE to join the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion and it's not necessary to finish the game, however it will affect your perception of the game world. Training the wrong skills in EVE won't cripple your character, but it will cost you time.
Whereas in a script that passes itself off for a game, which sadly includes most "games" today, you are often faced with forks in the path you are going down and have to choose A or B, with immediate and irrevocable consequences. Developers will argue game balance and coding issues, but you have to remember that these "forks" ONLY exist to try and cover up the fact that the game is a linear, boring piece of shit and they are trying to make it a little more interesting.
It's not true. But that has never stopped charlatans and quacks before. Why would a little thing like lack of truth stop them this time? The world is full of gullible people just begging to be separated from their money.
But the pen is mightier than the sword. Wait until Elon has a lot of capital invested. When he's in up to his teeth, suddenly someone somewhere will pass a new tax law, close a loophole, require approval for something from some agency and shut him down. To "save" the pork make-work jobs that are now "threatened".
Politicians are telling bankers how to bank, and car makers how to run car companies. Haven't you spotted the trend yet?
It's an inefficient parasite that kills its host, but this parasite has gotten too big. But politicians think we should "tone down the rhetoric", too. So don't complain, just shut up and pay your taxes unless you want bad things to happen.
If you put your name on a product, you are responsible. I don't care if they contracted stuff out to third parties - someone at Microsoft is signing the cheques. Since they bought it, it's their baby. If they cared about their product, they wouldn't allow it to be made from inferior parts.
Most of the food pellets are wasted uneaten and dwells to the bottom of the ponds.
Which is why aquaponics is so beautiful - that "waste" food is metabolized by bacteria into minerals and nitrates, which then helps to feed your plants. So the real "waste" is quite negligible. Your input (food pellets) will be used by either the fish or the plants. The "waste" from the system is removed by you, in the form of fresh vegetables, potent fertilizer (compact solid fish waste) or fish.
While it's true that poikilotherms have a far more efficient conversion ratio when it comes to food because they're not burning off all that energy just to maintain body temperature like hot blooded animals do, I am surprised that the first answer from these scientists is culturally unacceptable (well in most western cultures anyway) insects. I mean, what happened to fish? I'm sure that the difference in energy consumption between insects and fish is not all that great when compared to say a cow, sheep or pig. Basically what you feed is what you get in weight gain, it only takes around 1.2kg of food (in some species) to produce 1kg of muscle in fish. That's very efficient. Plus pretty much every culture in the world already eats fish.
My only thought is that said scientists were worried about the huge water consumption of aquaculture. However they have completely failed to consider the up and coming field of aquaponics which is extremely water efficient (the only loss is evaporation). With aquaponics you also get delicious veggies with your protein - you have to; it's part of the system that cleans your water to keep your fish healthy. Hey but what do I know, I've only met the guy that invented it.
There's always a loop-hole. Always. Unless you have the bad luck of being born in a country like the US where you have to pay income tax on your world income no matter where you live for the "privilege" of being American. Fortunately that's not my case, and I get to see the world and explore other cultures at the same time.
Well here we are several days (and posts later), and although my intention was never to troll - at least not with my original post - I find it amazing what has resulted. I guess the people who failed to understand my post are merely proving my point for me.
It's always funny when people insult those, and their backhanded insults in looking down on others overlook their own deficiencies.
Yes, it is:
plutocratic/plutkrætk/ Show Spelled[ploo-tuh-krat-ik] –adjective of, pertaining to, or characterized by a plutocracy or plutocrats.
Also, plutocratical.
Origin: 1865–70; plutocrat + -ic
And oligarchy does not necessarily mean corporate ties. It actually means rule by the few (oligo). Like Bush Sr. and Jr., Clinton husband and wife, almost anyone with the last name of Kennedy, etc.
99.9% is a figure of speech. I'm surprised you take it literally since the expression is quite common. But then again you are trying to refute my argument by implying I am arguing from authority, which is false, and by using sarcasm which in itself is not a counter argument.
You seem to have taken personal offense to what I have said, which speaks volumes about your own insecurities. Interesting.
IMO even foreclosures are overpriced. See the banks are in no rush to get rid of them, they know that if they're ever really hard up for cash Uncle Sam will bail them out now.
So how do you figure that health care quality is a function of population density? If this were the case, then India would have one of the best health care systems in the world.
Germany, of course, does even better (and they're one of the most pro-labor, pro-union countries in the world).
Hah, I just had a couple friends from Germany visit me and stay with me a few days. One of them is a Lt. Colonel in the German police force and apparently they get 1 year off with pay every 5 years they work. He was taking that year to drive from Alaska to Argentina on a motorcycle, and stopped by my place in Costa Rica.
Yeah, I think the Germans are doing ok. Most 50 year olds in the US I know are up to their elbows either in their own debt or their childrens' debt.
That's why I've tripled my money in gold and other commodities. Again.
While gold itself may have very little intrinsic value, tradition means it will always be a fallback when fiat currencies collapse. Always. But of course now is not the time to buy - that was 20+ years ago and there were times I would question myself and wonder if I had done the right thing as the stock market bubbled upwards in a seemingly endless way. The long term play paid off, though.
Today, seriously, I would be afraid to suddenly have to invest a lot of cash. There's nowhere to go. Bonds pay negligible interest. The stock market has inflated itself on pure air (again). Real estate has retreated, but not enough, and nothing is moving. Other currencies are in no better shape than the dollar. Commodities are now near all time highs again. Where do you put your money? Yet if you hold cash when the currency bubble pops, you instantly lose everything. It's a scary world today.
When are we going to graduate from this democracy myth and start calling the US the plutocratic oligarchic republic that it is?
Never, thanks to an education system that ensures that 99.9% of the population don't even understand what plutocratic oligarchic means and parents too busy watching ESPN or American Idol to compensate for said system's deficit.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are faced with such dramatic and irrevocable choices, clearly you are not so much playing a game as "following a script".
In a game - like say chess, Oblivion or EVE Online, the real firm choices are made at the beginning - what color do you want to play? What race do you want to be?
The rest of the experience is a cumulative result of many little decisions that have minor consequences but are not necessarily game changing in themselves.
Taking a pawn or losing a pawn will usually not cost you the game. But lose enough pawns and you'll get enemy pieces in your rear. You don't HAVE to join the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion and it's not necessary to finish the game, however it will affect your perception of the game world. Training the wrong skills in EVE won't cripple your character, but it will cost you time.
Whereas in a script that passes itself off for a game, which sadly includes most "games" today, you are often faced with forks in the path you are going down and have to choose A or B, with immediate and irrevocable consequences. Developers will argue game balance and coding issues, but you have to remember that these "forks" ONLY exist to try and cover up the fact that the game is a linear, boring piece of shit and they are trying to make it a little more interesting.
Guess what kind of games I like to play?
If this is true,
It's not true. But that has never stopped charlatans and quacks before. Why would a little thing like lack of truth stop them this time? The world is full of gullible people just begging to be separated from their money.
And you think that spamming this 3 or 4 times on slashdot is going to help? GTFO.
If I were a NASA engineer, I would rather shoot myself than work on such an obviously ill-conceived project.
Remember that NASA is a government agency which means they fired all the good engineers a long time ago.
But the pen is mightier than the sword. Wait until Elon has a lot of capital invested. When he's in up to his teeth, suddenly someone somewhere will pass a new tax law, close a loophole, require approval for something from some agency and shut him down. To "save" the pork make-work jobs that are now "threatened".
Just watch, this is exactly how governments work.
Politicians are telling bankers how to bank, and car makers how to run car companies. Haven't you spotted the trend yet?
It's an inefficient parasite that kills its host, but this parasite has gotten too big. But politicians think we should "tone down the rhetoric", too. So don't complain, just shut up and pay your taxes unless you want bad things to happen.
Everyone knows that physics experiments never work.
Plus, Sheldon is a theoretician.
It's actually "Microsoft Windows", not "Windows".
I guess it was on like Donkey Kong (tm)...
Anyway, goes to show that even if you're an old geezer, you still have the reflexes to beat some young punks...
Well I could argue that strictly speaking I don't buy any music illegaly...
If you put your name on a product, you are responsible. I don't care if they contracted stuff out to third parties - someone at Microsoft is signing the cheques. Since they bought it, it's their baby. If they cared about their product, they wouldn't allow it to be made from inferior parts.
Forgive him, he used to be a mortgage officer at Countrywide...
Most of the food pellets are wasted uneaten and dwells to the bottom of the ponds.
Which is why aquaponics is so beautiful - that "waste" food is metabolized by bacteria into minerals and nitrates, which then helps to feed your plants. So the real "waste" is quite negligible. Your input (food pellets) will be used by either the fish or the plants. The "waste" from the system is removed by you, in the form of fresh vegetables, potent fertilizer (compact solid fish waste) or fish.
While it's true that poikilotherms have a far more efficient conversion ratio when it comes to food because they're not burning off all that energy just to maintain body temperature like hot blooded animals do, I am surprised that the first answer from these scientists is culturally unacceptable (well in most western cultures anyway) insects. I mean, what happened to fish? I'm sure that the difference in energy consumption between insects and fish is not all that great when compared to say a cow, sheep or pig. Basically what you feed is what you get in weight gain, it only takes around 1.2kg of food (in some species) to produce 1kg of muscle in fish. That's very efficient. Plus pretty much every culture in the world already eats fish.
My only thought is that said scientists were worried about the huge water consumption of aquaculture. However they have completely failed to consider the up and coming field of aquaponics which is extremely water efficient (the only loss is evaporation). With aquaponics you also get delicious veggies with your protein - you have to; it's part of the system that cleans your water to keep your fish healthy. Hey but what do I know, I've only met the guy that invented it.
That alone tells me that it ain't probably "good" for you.
You need to inhale a little deeper and hold it in a while. Then you'll see that it really IS good for you...
There's always a loop-hole. Always. Unless you have the bad luck of being born in a country like the US where you have to pay income tax on your world income no matter where you live for the "privilege" of being American. Fortunately that's not my case, and I get to see the world and explore other cultures at the same time.
Well here we are several days (and posts later), and although my intention was never to troll - at least not with my original post - I find it amazing what has resulted. I guess the people who failed to understand my post are merely proving my point for me.
Perhaps if you stop memorizing definitions and start understanding what the actual roots of a word mean, it will be easier for you.
It's always funny when people insult those, and their backhanded insults in looking down on others overlook their own deficiencies.
Yes, it is:
plutocratic /plutkrætk/ Show Spelled[ploo-tuh-krat-ik]
–adjective
of, pertaining to, or characterized by a plutocracy or plutocrats.
Also, plutocratical.
Origin:
1865–70; plutocrat + -ic
And oligarchy does not necessarily mean corporate ties. It actually means rule by the few (oligo). Like Bush Sr. and Jr., Clinton husband and wife, almost anyone with the last name of Kennedy, etc.
99.9% is a figure of speech. I'm surprised you take it literally since the expression is quite common. But then again you are trying to refute my argument by implying I am arguing from authority, which is false, and by using sarcasm which in itself is not a counter argument.
You seem to have taken personal offense to what I have said, which speaks volumes about your own insecurities. Interesting.
IMO even foreclosures are overpriced. See the banks are in no rush to get rid of them, they know that if they're ever really hard up for cash Uncle Sam will bail them out now.
So how do you figure that health care quality is a function of population density? If this were the case, then India would have one of the best health care systems in the world.
Germany, of course, does even better (and they're one of the most pro-labor, pro-union countries in the world).
Hah, I just had a couple friends from Germany visit me and stay with me a few days. One of them is a Lt. Colonel in the German police force and apparently they get 1 year off with pay every 5 years they work. He was taking that year to drive from Alaska to Argentina on a motorcycle, and stopped by my place in Costa Rica.
Yeah, I think the Germans are doing ok. Most 50 year olds in the US I know are up to their elbows either in their own debt or their childrens' debt.
That's why I've tripled my money in gold and other commodities. Again.
While gold itself may have very little intrinsic value, tradition means it will always be a fallback when fiat currencies collapse. Always. But of course now is not the time to buy - that was 20+ years ago and there were times I would question myself and wonder if I had done the right thing as the stock market bubbled upwards in a seemingly endless way. The long term play paid off, though.
Today, seriously, I would be afraid to suddenly have to invest a lot of cash. There's nowhere to go. Bonds pay negligible interest. The stock market has inflated itself on pure air (again). Real estate has retreated, but not enough, and nothing is moving. Other currencies are in no better shape than the dollar. Commodities are now near all time highs again. Where do you put your money? Yet if you hold cash when the currency bubble pops, you instantly lose everything. It's a scary world today.
When are we going to graduate from this democracy myth and start calling the US the plutocratic oligarchic republic that it is?
Never, thanks to an education system that ensures that 99.9% of the population don't even understand what plutocratic oligarchic means and parents too busy watching ESPN or American Idol to compensate for said system's deficit.