"Micro babies.." Talk about junk science. So the normal healthy baby weight range is 2500g to 4000g http://kidshealth.org/en/paren... . The natural variation range is 1500g, and they managed to find a statistical variation of LESS THAN 7% where the natural variation of healthy babies is 38% and some nitwit calls it micro babies caused by coal. Talk about complete lack of proportion or basic knowledge of the facts...
Well, for starters, I am a thermal engineer with over 20 years of experience. As far as a climate scientist, try John Coleman, he has about 60 years of experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you really want some hard science, from first a first principles perspective, the temperature of the planet is driven by the energy received from the sun plus the energy released on the planet (fossil fuels/nuclear/etc.) minus the energy stored by the planet (plant and animal biomass changes) minus the energy radiated out to space. The earth radiates heat to space which is essentially at absolute zero with essentially a 100% view factor (black body radiation). The incident energy from the sun is more or less constant over time (1100 W/m^2). The big concern is changing the emissivity of the atmosphere or surface which affects the equation Qdot=(emissivity)*(Stephan-Boltzman constant)*Area*(Tabs^4). The area of the planet and Stephan-Boltzman constant are essential unchanged. Note that if the atmosphere changes the emissivity of the planet by 20%, the energy radiated is changed by 20%. However, if the global temperature increases by 1C, the amount of energy released increases by 95,054,975 times (assuming a global average temperature of 14C or 287K: 288K^4-287K^4). So on the one hand we have a theoretical, potential emissivity change of around 0.2 and the "climate scientists" are acting like chicken little, but on the other hand, if the global temperature goes up a SINGLE DEGREE the radiated energy goes up 95,054,975 times. In my book, 0.295,054,975 ( means massively smaller) and therefore AGW is highly unlikely and the planet changing temperature as we know it always has based on a multitude of factors for the most part unrelated to human activities.
BTW, CO2 already completely blocks IR radiation in the 3 bands that it absorbs and therefore adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not change the emissivity of the atmosphere. A cloudy day can block 60% of the incoming solar energy and a cloudy night can change the emissivity of the planet by 75%
That's probably part of it, but those overhead surveillance tools rarely if ever are able to look into vertical bedroom windows and do not possess 4 plus high speed spinning razor blades less than 30 feet from your face (that sound every bit the part). Further, there is a certain level of professionalism (apparently much less in the last 8 years) that I expect out of government surveillance. They are typically looking for bad actors and photos of my house or my car are not invasions of privacy. The guy flying his drone looking in my windows is NOT within his rights and has no business doing so.
Except that motor vehicles fill an essential need in modern civilization. Drones are at best a tool for a few, at worst a toy to spy or peep on your fellow citizens. If drones start filling an essential need, there will be wider acceptance of the nuisance that drones pose.
Show me any college graduate who doesn't start low to mid level in the company. The point is fresh grads will actually be able to find jobs and accumulate experience and go up in pay scale from there... Are you really so bitter over Trump that you can't accept good policy when it directly benefits you and your friends and co-workers?
I came here to say the exact same thing. He may be riding high right now, but at some point, investors do expect consistent profits. The market for electric cars is not that broad unless they can get withing 15% or so of ICE powered cars price wise and cost of ownership. The other big utility hit is the ability of ICE gasoline cars to refuel in under 5 minutes.
This is why I feel no great interest in upgrading to DDR4 (or DDR5). Once you have 64GB of RAM and are no longer touching the HDD for virtual memory, the speed changes between DDR3 and DDR5 for all but the most arcane applications is negligible, and video card is going to give you bigger bang for your buck in gaming/VR/AR/CAD/Video editing and the like.
(Geek note: yes, yes I know it is not universal, thus the generalization. You spend $600 on DDR5 Ram and I will spend $350 on a video card and we will see who comes out ahead.)
AC below pretty effectively spelled it out. You might want to pay closer attention to WTF is going on when giant corporations are trying to rob you of your basic property rights instead of licking their boots...
For global warming, they mostly have. Which is why it's easy for everyone competent to analyze the data to agree that there's a problem. (Though of course there's plenty of individuals that *aren't* competent to do so creating ridiculous scientific-sounding counterarguments)
So anyone who disagrees with global warming, regardless of their argument/qualifications/facts is incompetent. Nice. Let me know when reality bitch slaps you out of your self righteous bubble. Maybe then we can have a reasonable discussion on the topic.
Best and most powerful are not the same thing. As I noted above, try rubbing some bleach on your skin and get back to me. Does sunlight kill absolutely everything? No. Most things? Yes. Is it a good balance of disinfectant power and harmlessness to the environment/pets/your skin? Yes.
Does everyone on/. not understand what the saying "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." means? Apparently...
"You think CO2 is causing climate change. There are 3 main CO2 bands of IR absorption at wavelengths 1388, 667, 2349 cm-1 (HITRAN) and these are already saturated at current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Infra Red measurements from space show that the atmosphere is opaque at these wavelengths. Our atmosphere is at 0.04% CO2 and already opaque at those wavelengths. So no, I don't think CO2 is causing climate change, and have yet to see any proof that it is (lab proof, not hand waiving/correlation vs causation observations that do not have any means of controlling for the natural change of the global climate)."
On the other hand, CO2 is essential for all life on this planet, hardly the description of a pollutant. If you were to build a machine that consumes and captures all CO2 on the planet, you would wipe out all life in a mater of months, and with the death of all plant life, the planet temperature would soar to desert levels at lower lattitudes. So the real question that a scientist would ask is if zero CO2 kills all life on the planet, and CO2 at current levels already blocks all the outbound radiation that it can, what exactly are we afraid of with CO2 levels? A real scientist might look at (OMG) scientific studies done on CO2 levels for plants and find that they love the stuff at nearly any level up to something like 20% atmosphere (that's 200,000 ppm for those who are bad at math), and that CO2 only becomes noticeable for animals at around 1000 ppm (0.1%). https://www.kane.co.uk/knowled... So we could literally double our CO2 levels with no effect on outbound radiation or human comfort. (CO2 has gone from an estimated 335ppm to 380ppm at most in the last 100 years; the older data has been cherry picked, but there is a lot of pre-industiral revolution data showing atmospheric CO2 levels in the 400ppm range). If you are truly interested to learn more about earlier CO2 measurements, this paper has some very interesting HISTORICAL FACTS that have been for the most part ignored by the climate change orthodox fanatics because it doesn't fit their narrative or agenda (note this is not the practice of good scientists). https://friendsofscience.org/a...
Pretty sure the US pays for the vast majority of climate research, both locally and globally.
Elsevier is a $2B/year mega corp that steals research paid for by taxpayers and it needs to be destroyed, by law or force if necessary, and I am confident that the Netherlands will agree that Elsevier is a criminal cartel stealing the research results paid for by taxpayers the world over and then selling them back to everyone else. The fact that they use publishing requirements of universities against essentially everyone (researchers, reviewers, readers) is even more damning. If the Netherlands doesn't like it, the US can unilaterally declare all their content nationalized, since the US paid for nearly all of the research to be done in the first place. If the Netherlands still throws a fit, we can ship them a few thousand metric tons of pot or ordinance, their choice.
Going forward to fix this mess, all US grants must require publication in open source media as well as the Library of Congress to prevent this ridiculous form of information theft by foreign entities or corporations.
You think CO2 is causing climate change. There are 3 main CO2 bands of IR absorption at wavelengths 1388, 667, 2349 cm-1 (HITRAN) and these are already saturated at current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Infra Red measurements from space show that the atmosphere is opaque at these wavelengths. I have had people point to Venus and say "look how hot the CO2 makes it on Venus" And yes, it is hot on Venus, but Venus receives 2600 W/sqmeter vs Earth at 1100 W/sqmeter and it's atmosphere is 97% CO2 vs our atmosphere at 0.04% CO2. So no, I don't think CO2 is causing climate change, and have yet to see any proof that it is (lab proof, not hand waiving/correlation vs causation observations that do not have any means of controlling for the natural change of the global climate).
"and sunlight is the best disinfectant."
" I'm pretty sure chlorine trifluoride is more effective at killing germs."
I'm pretty sure I said best, not most powerful. Go ahead and soak in some chlorine trifluoride and let me know how that goes for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Sunlight kills just about all viruses, bacteria and fungi in short order and is not overly harmful to surfaces, pets or humans, and is only mildly carcenogenic (it takes many years of daily exposure).
If global warming really is a global crisis, I would think everyone would be shouting their data from the mountaintops (metaphorically) rather than hiding them behind paywalls and copyright laws. Also fairly certain that there are ZERO companies, foreign or domestic who actually produce research who are not funded in part or whole by governments, who have zero interest in restricting the data that they paid to have collected.
I am just waiting for this second turd of a console to explode and then hopefully I can play their first party game ports on my Xbone or PS4. They lost me as a console customer when they made the WiiU and the Switch just doubles down on a series of terrible ideas.
"In the case of environmental regulations, the industry money is all lining up to say we don't need to reduce fossil fuel use. And the vast majority of scientists are saying that the science is settled, and it goes against what industry is pushing."
Except for the green lobby and the majority of federal politicians for the last 12 years who funneled billions of dollars to fund "green" jobs that never materialized and a global warming crisis that became a climate change crisis that became a nothing story... The politicians on the losing side are screaming that AGW is settled science, but the only "scientists" who say that AGW is settled are the ones looking for another grant to study it. These same "scientists" have been making wildly inaccurate global temperature models for the last 20 years and they somehow expect the rest of us to believe them yet again.
Abolishing the EPA gets to the root of the problem, as you note it is politicians and the government causing billions of dollars in damage and wrecking peoples lives because, though their intentions are good, they are frequently wrong and we all pay the price. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Pretty sure the government can appropriate whatever it wants in the public interest. Corporations can either play ball and get paid or bend over. 90% of the content on Elsevyr was created by researchers paid by public grants anyway. Who the hell do they think they are?
Scientific results are supposed to be distributed for all to review. If there are a few corporations preventing this, the next time the Dims are in power, how about they take them over in the national interest, seeing as how we are paying billions of dollars for the research that they are trying to lock up and sell at exorbitant rates...
The problem is this is not the core issue. The core issue is that there is a lot of bad science steering the ship at the EPA (CO2 is not a pollutant, the puddle in your back yard is not a wetlands, the government does not own the rain that falls on your property, etc.) and sunlight is the best disinfectant. Trust but verify.
If trolling gets intolerable and pervasive enough, universal ID will get passed legislatively and all the trolls will wilt in the light of day. Trolls only exist because they can lurk in their mothers basement safe and sound. The minute you know that guy you are doxxing might come to your house and kick your ass, it stops being fun. This is why we can't have nice things.
Yes, I remember those days, but it is not 90% of the population. The truth is that probably 90% of the trolls are gutless little 12-19 year old boys who get beat up at school every day and trolling makes them feel powerful the only way they know how. Trolling will always exist because there will always be assholes and sociopaths, but it's rampant nature right now is indicative of deep social problems in our society, and it will drop off dramatically if we address those problems.
That or we can just go for universal ID and eliminate online anonymity. I hope this day never comes, but it is a solid fact that the risk/reward for being an asshole or worse online goes way down when the cops, or just some random guy might show up at your front door and make your life difficult.
It will happen eventually, it will either take a new generation of computer literate representatives to get elected, or such an egregious abuse of DRM by businesses that it becomes a national topic. People having to hack their cars and such just to change the oil may get the job done.
Kinect was originally intended to be required, but they dropped it pre-release because of the backlash.
Split screen was a bad joke
The big external power brick is annoying, yes they are learning, but the PS4 didn't have an external power supply at launch, so it may be more accurate to say they are learning to copy Sony.
Slower RAM interface and less processors tasked with gaming (at least at launch) ended up cutting their performance by ~25% compared to the launch PS4.
I am not a fanboy and I have both systems, but I waited 18 months before I bought my Xbone, and I bought it for $200 on a flash sale. Hardware has gotten so good that the limiting factor in game detail and quality really is the game it'self, which is why you probably didn't notice a difference.
"...we imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing and new ways to try and buy games..."
OK, fine, but thats not what people were pissed about, and you know it. There is no rational explanation for DRM (aka digital non-rights) to prevent resale. You want to digitally revolutionize and save money on distribution and make things more convenient for your customers? Fine, but give me a button in my Xbone UI that says "release rights" or some such or better yet, an online marketplace to resell digital content I no longer want. Why should I give up the fundamental right of resale on my $2000 plus library of games just because the original seller saved $7 on not having to sell me a physical disc, case and manual? Hell, digital should give me more rights or a discount, like the right to rent my copy out to others when I'm not using it.
This was a straight up money grab by MS and the developers, and the consumer bitch slapped you down because there was real meaningful competition. Own it and move on.
We guarantee the right to protest, not riot. If a group is rioting, the crowd must disperse immediately. This glorified RV is not the right solution, the right solution is to send out the national guard with orders to shoot rioters/looters. If you don't respect the rule of law, I have no respect for you or your position or your life.
The black lies matter cartel is directly responsible for the Dallas mass shooting that you reference and they are a bunch of lying race pimps who have been proven wrong at every turn and their only goal is to whip up emotion of the ignorant population they take advantage of (not the entire black population) for their own political advantage. Unfortunately, if you allow yourself to be ignorant and lied to, you expose yourself to this and further if you choose to riot and destroy others property, you should be harshly punished. If you fight with the police or disobey lawful orders, you may get shot. Stupidity and ignorance have consequences. The war on black men is waged by other black men (2245 blacks murdered by other blacks https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t... ) not police http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
You are basically imagining the world of Star Trek... Sorry, we are nowhere near there. Yes, we will continue to automate simple, repetitive tasks. I now deposit all my checks via my smartphone. When I need to get cash, I go to the ATM. When I have a problem, I want to call or go in and not wait in a long line or talk to a robot online, I want a real human being, and I don't want to have to wait for 30 minutes. The aforementioned advances in technology allow me to do just this. Yes, the bank may have a few less employees, but for the last 40 years the banks I visit always have a manager, a business accounts person and 2-3 tellers. They probably serve more people today, but they still have the same numbers.
TA was definitely a fun game. I sunk many hours playing that game, and have fond memories of going to the library to use their "high speed" internet connection to download new units. However, aside from the opening cinematic explaining the plot, it didn't have much of a story, and it plays more like 40 man call of duty, you can't work that much strategy because the game is not well balanced and is at its core just a harvest/build race to the superweapons. StarCraft and Brood War on the other hand are what I would consider a modern digital version of chess, where you can work out strategies and counters, rather than just racing for resources/unit builds.
I am a little disappointed in how Blizzard is doing it though. They should release them as an expansion for Starcraft II for $10 OR a standalone purchase of whatever they want to charge. I am sure they rebuilt SC on the SC II engine anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
"Micro babies.." Talk about junk science. So the normal healthy baby weight range is 2500g to 4000g http://kidshealth.org/en/paren... . The natural variation range is 1500g, and they managed to find a statistical variation of LESS THAN 7% where the natural variation of healthy babies is 38% and some nitwit calls it micro babies caused by coal. Talk about complete lack of proportion or basic knowledge of the facts...
Well, for starters, I am a thermal engineer with over 20 years of experience. As far as a climate scientist, try John Coleman, he has about 60 years of experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you have a truly open mind, you might want to read this article on the majority farce: http://www.nationalreview.com/...
If you really want some hard science, from first a first principles perspective, the temperature of the planet is driven by the energy received from the sun plus the energy released on the planet (fossil fuels/nuclear/etc.) minus the energy stored by the planet (plant and animal biomass changes) minus the energy radiated out to space. The earth radiates heat to space which is essentially at absolute zero with essentially a 100% view factor (black body radiation). The incident energy from the sun is more or less constant over time (1100 W/m^2). The big concern is changing the emissivity of the atmosphere or surface which affects the equation Qdot=(emissivity)*(Stephan-Boltzman constant)*Area*(Tabs^4). The area of the planet and Stephan-Boltzman constant are essential unchanged. Note that if the atmosphere changes the emissivity of the planet by 20%, the energy radiated is changed by 20%. However, if the global temperature increases by 1C, the amount of energy released increases by 95,054,975 times (assuming a global average temperature of 14C or 287K: 288K^4-287K^4). So on the one hand we have a theoretical, potential emissivity change of around 0.2 and the "climate scientists" are acting like chicken little, but on the other hand, if the global temperature goes up a SINGLE DEGREE the radiated energy goes up 95,054,975 times. In my book, 0.295,054,975 ( means massively smaller) and therefore AGW is highly unlikely and the planet changing temperature as we know it always has based on a multitude of factors for the most part unrelated to human activities.
BTW, CO2 already completely blocks IR radiation in the 3 bands that it absorbs and therefore adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not change the emissivity of the atmosphere. A cloudy day can block 60% of the incoming solar energy and a cloudy night can change the emissivity of the planet by 75%
That's probably part of it, but those overhead surveillance tools rarely if ever are able to look into vertical bedroom windows and do not possess 4 plus high speed spinning razor blades less than 30 feet from your face (that sound every bit the part). Further, there is a certain level of professionalism (apparently much less in the last 8 years) that I expect out of government surveillance. They are typically looking for bad actors and photos of my house or my car are not invasions of privacy. The guy flying his drone looking in my windows is NOT within his rights and has no business doing so.
Except that motor vehicles fill an essential need in modern civilization. Drones are at best a tool for a few, at worst a toy to spy or peep on your fellow citizens. If drones start filling an essential need, there will be wider acceptance of the nuisance that drones pose.
Show me any college graduate who doesn't start low to mid level in the company. The point is fresh grads will actually be able to find jobs and accumulate experience and go up in pay scale from there... Are you really so bitter over Trump that you can't accept good policy when it directly benefits you and your friends and co-workers?
I came here to say the exact same thing. He may be riding high right now, but at some point, investors do expect consistent profits. The market for electric cars is not that broad unless they can get withing 15% or so of ICE powered cars price wise and cost of ownership. The other big utility hit is the ability of ICE gasoline cars to refuel in under 5 minutes.
This is why I feel no great interest in upgrading to DDR4 (or DDR5). Once you have 64GB of RAM and are no longer touching the HDD for virtual memory, the speed changes between DDR3 and DDR5 for all but the most arcane applications is negligible, and video card is going to give you bigger bang for your buck in gaming/VR/AR/CAD/Video editing and the like.
(Geek note: yes, yes I know it is not universal, thus the generalization. You spend $600 on DDR5 Ram and I will spend $350 on a video card and we will see who comes out ahead.)
AC below pretty effectively spelled it out. You might want to pay closer attention to WTF is going on when giant corporations are trying to rob you of your basic property rights instead of licking their boots...
For global warming, they mostly have. Which is why it's easy for everyone competent to analyze the data to agree that there's a problem. (Though of course there's plenty of individuals that *aren't* competent to do so creating ridiculous scientific-sounding counterarguments)
So anyone who disagrees with global warming, regardless of their argument/qualifications/facts is incompetent. Nice. Let me know when reality bitch slaps you out of your self righteous bubble. Maybe then we can have a reasonable discussion on the topic.
LOL Anon, I love the name and echo your sentiments.
Best and most powerful are not the same thing. As I noted above, try rubbing some bleach on your skin and get back to me. Does sunlight kill absolutely everything? No. Most things? Yes. Is it a good balance of disinfectant power and harmlessness to the environment/pets/your skin? Yes.
Does everyone on /. not understand what the saying "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." means? Apparently...
See my post above:
"You think CO2 is causing climate change. There are 3 main CO2 bands of IR absorption at wavelengths 1388, 667, 2349 cm-1 (HITRAN) and these are already saturated at current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Infra Red measurements from space show that the atmosphere is opaque at these wavelengths. Our atmosphere is at 0.04% CO2 and already opaque at those wavelengths. So no, I don't think CO2 is causing climate change, and have yet to see any proof that it is (lab proof, not hand waiving/correlation vs causation observations that do not have any means of controlling for the natural change of the global climate)."
On the other hand, CO2 is essential for all life on this planet, hardly the description of a pollutant. If you were to build a machine that consumes and captures all CO2 on the planet, you would wipe out all life in a mater of months, and with the death of all plant life, the planet temperature would soar to desert levels at lower lattitudes. So the real question that a scientist would ask is if zero CO2 kills all life on the planet, and CO2 at current levels already blocks all the outbound radiation that it can, what exactly are we afraid of with CO2 levels? A real scientist might look at (OMG) scientific studies done on CO2 levels for plants and find that they love the stuff at nearly any level up to something like 20% atmosphere (that's 200,000 ppm for those who are bad at math), and that CO2 only becomes noticeable for animals at around 1000 ppm (0.1%). https://www.kane.co.uk/knowled... So we could literally double our CO2 levels with no effect on outbound radiation or human comfort. (CO2 has gone from an estimated 335ppm to 380ppm at most in the last 100 years; the older data has been cherry picked, but there is a lot of pre-industiral revolution data showing atmospheric CO2 levels in the 400ppm range). If you are truly interested to learn more about earlier CO2 measurements, this paper has some very interesting HISTORICAL FACTS that have been for the most part ignored by the climate change orthodox fanatics because it doesn't fit their narrative or agenda (note this is not the practice of good scientists). https://friendsofscience.org/a...
Nice sock puppet downmods to my post.
Pretty sure the US pays for the vast majority of climate research, both locally and globally.
Elsevier is a $2B/year mega corp that steals research paid for by taxpayers and it needs to be destroyed, by law or force if necessary, and I am confident that the Netherlands will agree that Elsevier is a criminal cartel stealing the research results paid for by taxpayers the world over and then selling them back to everyone else. The fact that they use publishing requirements of universities against essentially everyone (researchers, reviewers, readers) is even more damning. If the Netherlands doesn't like it, the US can unilaterally declare all their content nationalized, since the US paid for nearly all of the research to be done in the first place. If the Netherlands still throws a fit, we can ship them a few thousand metric tons of pot or ordinance, their choice.
Going forward to fix this mess, all US grants must require publication in open source media as well as the Library of Congress to prevent this ridiculous form of information theft by foreign entities or corporations.
You think CO2 is causing climate change. There are 3 main CO2 bands of IR absorption at wavelengths 1388, 667, 2349 cm-1 (HITRAN) and these are already saturated at current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Infra Red measurements from space show that the atmosphere is opaque at these wavelengths. I have had people point to Venus and say "look how hot the CO2 makes it on Venus" And yes, it is hot on Venus, but Venus receives 2600 W/sqmeter vs Earth at 1100 W/sqmeter and it's atmosphere is 97% CO2 vs our atmosphere at 0.04% CO2. So no, I don't think CO2 is causing climate change, and have yet to see any proof that it is (lab proof, not hand waiving/correlation vs causation observations that do not have any means of controlling for the natural change of the global climate).
"and sunlight is the best disinfectant."
" I'm pretty sure chlorine trifluoride is more effective at killing germs."
I'm pretty sure I said best, not most powerful. Go ahead and soak in some chlorine trifluoride and let me know how that goes for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Sunlight kills just about all viruses, bacteria and fungi in short order and is not overly harmful to surfaces, pets or humans, and is only mildly carcenogenic (it takes many years of daily exposure).
If global warming really is a global crisis, I would think everyone would be shouting their data from the mountaintops (metaphorically) rather than hiding them behind paywalls and copyright laws. Also fairly certain that there are ZERO companies, foreign or domestic who actually produce research who are not funded in part or whole by governments, who have zero interest in restricting the data that they paid to have collected.
I am just waiting for this second turd of a console to explode and then hopefully I can play their first party game ports on my Xbone or PS4. They lost me as a console customer when they made the WiiU and the Switch just doubles down on a series of terrible ideas.
"In the case of environmental regulations, the industry money is all lining up to say we don't need to reduce fossil fuel use. And the vast majority of scientists are saying that the science is settled, and it goes against what industry is pushing."
Except for the green lobby and the majority of federal politicians for the last 12 years who funneled billions of dollars to fund "green" jobs that never materialized and a global warming crisis that became a climate change crisis that became a nothing story... The politicians on the losing side are screaming that AGW is settled science, but the only "scientists" who say that AGW is settled are the ones looking for another grant to study it. These same "scientists" have been making wildly inaccurate global temperature models for the last 20 years and they somehow expect the rest of us to believe them yet again.
Abolishing the EPA gets to the root of the problem, as you note it is politicians and the government causing billions of dollars in damage and wrecking peoples lives because, though their intentions are good, they are frequently wrong and we all pay the price. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Pretty sure the government can appropriate whatever it wants in the public interest. Corporations can either play ball and get paid or bend over. 90% of the content on Elsevyr was created by researchers paid by public grants anyway. Who the hell do they think they are?
Scientific results are supposed to be distributed for all to review. If there are a few corporations preventing this, the next time the Dims are in power, how about they take them over in the national interest, seeing as how we are paying billions of dollars for the research that they are trying to lock up and sell at exorbitant rates...
The problem is this is not the core issue. The core issue is that there is a lot of bad science steering the ship at the EPA (CO2 is not a pollutant, the puddle in your back yard is not a wetlands, the government does not own the rain that falls on your property, etc.) and sunlight is the best disinfectant. Trust but verify.
If trolling gets intolerable and pervasive enough, universal ID will get passed legislatively and all the trolls will wilt in the light of day. Trolls only exist because they can lurk in their mothers basement safe and sound. The minute you know that guy you are doxxing might come to your house and kick your ass, it stops being fun. This is why we can't have nice things.
In the mean time, don't feed the trolls.
Yes, I remember those days, but it is not 90% of the population. The truth is that probably 90% of the trolls are gutless little 12-19 year old boys who get beat up at school every day and trolling makes them feel powerful the only way they know how. Trolling will always exist because there will always be assholes and sociopaths, but it's rampant nature right now is indicative of deep social problems in our society, and it will drop off dramatically if we address those problems.
That or we can just go for universal ID and eliminate online anonymity. I hope this day never comes, but it is a solid fact that the risk/reward for being an asshole or worse online goes way down when the cops, or just some random guy might show up at your front door and make your life difficult.
It will happen eventually, it will either take a new generation of computer literate representatives to get elected, or such an egregious abuse of DRM by businesses that it becomes a national topic. People having to hack their cars and such just to change the oil may get the job done.
Kinect was originally intended to be required, but they dropped it pre-release because of the backlash.
Split screen was a bad joke
The big external power brick is annoying, yes they are learning, but the PS4 didn't have an external power supply at launch, so it may be more accurate to say they are learning to copy Sony.
Slower RAM interface and less processors tasked with gaming (at least at launch) ended up cutting their performance by ~25% compared to the launch PS4.
I am not a fanboy and I have both systems, but I waited 18 months before I bought my Xbone, and I bought it for $200 on a flash sale. Hardware has gotten so good that the limiting factor in game detail and quality really is the game it'self, which is why you probably didn't notice a difference.
"...we imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing and new ways to try and buy games..."
OK, fine, but thats not what people were pissed about, and you know it. There is no rational explanation for DRM (aka digital non-rights) to prevent resale. You want to digitally revolutionize and save money on distribution and make things more convenient for your customers? Fine, but give me a button in my Xbone UI that says "release rights" or some such or better yet, an online marketplace to resell digital content I no longer want. Why should I give up the fundamental right of resale on my $2000 plus library of games just because the original seller saved $7 on not having to sell me a physical disc, case and manual? Hell, digital should give me more rights or a discount, like the right to rent my copy out to others when I'm not using it.
This was a straight up money grab by MS and the developers, and the consumer bitch slapped you down because there was real meaningful competition. Own it and move on.
We guarantee the right to protest, not riot. If a group is rioting, the crowd must disperse immediately. This glorified RV is not the right solution, the right solution is to send out the national guard with orders to shoot rioters/looters. If you don't respect the rule of law, I have no respect for you or your position or your life.
The black lies matter cartel is directly responsible for the Dallas mass shooting that you reference and they are a bunch of lying race pimps who have been proven wrong at every turn and their only goal is to whip up emotion of the ignorant population they take advantage of (not the entire black population) for their own political advantage. Unfortunately, if you allow yourself to be ignorant and lied to, you expose yourself to this and further if you choose to riot and destroy others property, you should be harshly punished. If you fight with the police or disobey lawful orders, you may get shot. Stupidity and ignorance have consequences. The war on black men is waged by other black men (2245 blacks murdered by other blacks https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t... ) not police http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
You are basically imagining the world of Star Trek... Sorry, we are nowhere near there. Yes, we will continue to automate simple, repetitive tasks. I now deposit all my checks via my smartphone. When I need to get cash, I go to the ATM. When I have a problem, I want to call or go in and not wait in a long line or talk to a robot online, I want a real human being, and I don't want to have to wait for 30 minutes. The aforementioned advances in technology allow me to do just this. Yes, the bank may have a few less employees, but for the last 40 years the banks I visit always have a manager, a business accounts person and 2-3 tellers. They probably serve more people today, but they still have the same numbers.
TA was definitely a fun game. I sunk many hours playing that game, and have fond memories of going to the library to use their "high speed" internet connection to download new units. However, aside from the opening cinematic explaining the plot, it didn't have much of a story, and it plays more like 40 man call of duty, you can't work that much strategy because the game is not well balanced and is at its core just a harvest/build race to the superweapons. StarCraft and Brood War on the other hand are what I would consider a modern digital version of chess, where you can work out strategies and counters, rather than just racing for resources/unit builds.
I am a little disappointed in how Blizzard is doing it though. They should release them as an expansion for Starcraft II for $10 OR a standalone purchase of whatever they want to charge. I am sure they rebuilt SC on the SC II engine anyway.