I really don't beleive you got a '+5 insightfull' for what you just posted.
The correct response, other than a lot of swearing at your utter stupidity, or maybe locking you up in a few year's time on charges of murder and environmental polution, is maybe this:
You don't get the fucking point, do you? Who cares about China, India, and Brazil , when the US is still the largest polutor in the world? And even that isn't the point. The point is that polution is fucking up the climate. It isn't speculation, it isn't hypothesis, and with so much supporting data it isn't even really a theory. Consider it an axiom. Smarter people than you, who have studied chemistry, biology, ecology, meteorology, you know, people who should know, tell you that.
So we've established that the greenhouse effect et all exist: climate change due to human influence is real (to those who still want to debate the point: you really are dumb, go study a relevant field [or any hard science for that matter], have the most cursory glance at the data available and you too will realise there is nothing to debate except details).
Given that climate change is real, and knowing the effects (look at Mars: observing that planet lead to the discovery of the existance of the greenhouse effects in the first place), there is only one conlusion: we have to act or our children (and those who still have 50 years or more ahead of them) will suffer. Not just 'have to spend more on taxes' or 'will witness a draught or flood or two more'. No, we're talking about the effects of that last tsunami, but then all over the world: the water will not drain away and the damage will not be localised. Coastlines worldwide will be hit and the large production/distribution centres found there will be destroyed.
So it's no use playing the blame game. This environmental stuff doesn't give a shit: it doesn't compromise, it doesn't give a shit for politics or geographical boundaries. Chemistry is a bitch like that.
The Kyoto treaty isn't just a first step in the right direction. It is, at the moment, the only step on the table. It has to be taken. It is do that or do nothing. By itself it is a joke, of course, if you're shortsighted enough to think that it by itself is the solution to the problem. It's not: the USA weakened it so much during it's formation (before pulling out entirely) that it's not even a very definitive first step anymore. Even so...it's all there is at the moment, and we just don't have the time to wait another ten years to draft a better treaty and get the support. We need that time to draft the successor to it.
So, damian: you are a fucking git. Your point is just that: a cute little factiod which doesn't have anything to do with the point at hand, which is: we must do this thing now or in 50 years we have an insurmountable problem instead of just a huge fucking large problem. Your indifference is even worse than the 'but we need to gain a relative economical advantage'-crowd (who are dumb enough, because one thing they fail to realise is that, yes, it will cost money, but that money is going into the development of new technologies, which need to be manufactured, which means new jobs created all around...hopw's that for economic advantage? Plus, you get a place to live!) because they at least recognise the problem at hand.
But no matter what happens, there is a bright point: remember that social security problem? In the future it won't be. All the old people who could have done something will, in a couple of decades, be left to rot in the streets by the kids who are born now or are too young to influence the process, because as they grow up, they'll realiser that those old bastards did this to them: they fucked up their own planet and did nothing to stop it...so why the fuck should we pay them anything, or care for them? They didn't for us, even though the evidence was staring them, in the face; all they did was say, like the bum on the street who didn't pay his morgage-payments, 'where is the economic advantage in it?', or 'hey, but in a couple of decades, those other countries will be reaching our level of polution' even though it was our own level of polution has already done all the damage.
check out www.3dconnexion.com and have a look out for the spaceball 4000. It's used quite a bit for CAD/CAM in shops which have the money. Also a bit in other 3D, but it's far from standard...wish I had one for 3dmax, but even on ebay the things useually go for more than $200.
That's a fine sentiment, but there is one thing it ignores: kids spend just as much time (if not more) at school as they do with their parents. This time distribution must mean that schools have to be parttialy responsible for the education (in the moral sense, as well as the purely scientific/artistic/gymnastic senses) of their charges. Which is where PTA's come in: a way for parents to influence the way the surrogate parents (ie the school) raises their kids in the parents absence.
"Game developers are in a losing battle against piracy."
This point comes up a lot...but I have yet to see numbers which actually substantiate this, even a little. The numbers I see all point towards the opposite; games, music and video are all making record profits. Let me say that again: the respective industries have made the most money they ever have in the past year.
Even more to the point, there have been studies which show that piracy actually increases sales, due to the extra exposure people get to something they would otherwise never have bought: piracy has been shown to increase sales.
OTOH I have yet to see an independant study (not results paid for by the *IAA) which conclusively proves that piracy does lead to reduced profits.
Well, usually it's a tiny minority who actually know what is going on/how something works/have studied a problem for a large part of their lives. The mayority only has the information which is derived from this minority, and is filtered by politics and media.
So, yeah: put your trust in the minority who's expertise is somethng they've worked hard to get, instead of the mayority who has no clue.
Of course, there's the problem of identifying the minority who actually know what they're talking about, and aren't crackpots...
"Entering a nation with a fake or expired VISA is clearly wrong and unneccessary"
True...so why the fuck would a terrorist do such a dumb, stupid thing? It's relatively easy to get visa's. If you have the backing of an organisation with even just a modicum of cash, it's real easy to meet the requirements for obtaining a visa. Not doing so as a terrorist would frankly get you nominated for a Darwin. Someone with a bad visa (or without one) is likely to be an economic drain on a country, or likely to go out and mug someone; that's the reason he/she didn't get a visa: not on account of terrorism, but because he was either poor or didn't have enough (formal) education.
It's just common sense: a terrorist who is any threat at all will have all his papers in order. So go the way of madness, and do what the UK just tried to do: make it legal to lock up everyone who has their shit in order, !because he might be a terrorist!.
As for your comment about that Jesus guy: I don't think he meant it as an excuse to never critisice anything, ever. Or to get you out of your responsibiliies, for that matter. And please remember two other facts: Budha was no slough at moralising either, and the movement Jesus left in his wake has been the most bloody, corrupting, ignorance-promoting, overpopulating-and-let-the-world-be-damned cult the world has seen for the past couple of thousand years.
"So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?"
Yup...kinda like GWB put protesters in 'free speech zones' miles from where their protest could have any impact whatsoever, and like the police where instructed to harshly break up any protests the past couple of years.
"So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?"
Yup, they did: but then again, not only does the US also have the deathpenalty, but one could very well argue that theirs is a more humane alternative to torturing people for the rest of their lives in Guantanamo Bay.
"So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?"
Pretty much: the only religion banned is Falun Gong; christians, budhists etc etc etc have free reign. But don't go sp[eaking revolution, or you'll get a visit which looks pretty much like how the Secret Service shows up on your doorstep if you say something derogetory about the US Prez.
"So the Chinese government does not make huge amounts of money from prison labor?"
Nah...they make a bit of money, but not gopbs of cash...manual labour just doesn't bring in the bacan like high-tech. Just look at the income american prisons get from their manual labour, which operates under pretty much the same policy. And if you want to see the darker side of it, go look at what happens in Texan jails.
"And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?"
Didn't hit Taiowan, just let 'em know who has the big guns. Kinda exactly unlike what the US is doing in the middle east: the US is bombing the hell out of shit, creating a massive deathcount, destabalising a country and the whole region...and that's somehow better than just launching a missile and not hitting anything?
"Just asking if these are all myths that I have seen on TV?"
No...but there is this saying about casting stones and sin, and another one about beams of wood and splinters in your own or someone else's eyes.
"of fade between two video streams and render back to a file,"
Oh, kind of like how you do a textureblend between two or more textures using ramping opacity and render to any surface?
Had you read the FA, you would have noticed that, hey! Lo and behold: 3DEdit does exactly what you want: with a 5700 (absolute minimum req), it does the work of fading "between two video streams and render back to a file" just shy of real-time.
"The school district has only decided not to sanction sexual education on school grounds on the grounds that it involves an activity that is not intended for kids under 16. There is nothing wrong with that."
I swear, you have been conditioned to respect rules which have replaced common sense, all in the name of avoiding law-suits.
"I realize that a few parents did permit the event, but what about the majority of parents?"
Rarely trust the mayority; there are places where children are taught that evolution is not science, and creationism deserves equal time. There are places where kids aren't taught propper sex-ed, and teenage pregnancies rise.
But there's the rub: creationism is not a theory; it's at best a hypothesis, and a bad one at that. Hell, it's not even a scientific hypothesis, as it doesn't make predictions (it can't!)and is therefore untestable, and it does not reduce complexity (it only adds complexity in the form of an inexplicable being of infinite complexity).
Creationism is not science. If you think so, google for 'the Scientific Method'.
"Besides, science admits that spontaneous generation happened in the past -- otherwise, whence did life evolve in the first place? Creationism, in its most fundamental form, is that a Sentience caused that first spontaneous generation."
And that is the crux of the matter: creationism cannot explain that first moment, except in terms of the inexplicable.
" You're confusing microevolution with macroevolution."
That's irrelevant. Evolution has been observed and can even be made to happen. It is the name of an observable and testable process. Timescales are irrelevant in this case.
Now where is your example of micro-creationism? I can give a ton of examples of (observed) evolution.
"The freedom of speech is not a freedom to be a shithead."
Actually. it pretty much does.
"They were, deliberately and with malicious intent,"
Yup. They where doing it intentionaly and there was malice towards lawyers involved...but:
"making a public nuisance of themselves."
is not true. They where maybe being too loud...but even that I doubt, seeing as they where 70 years old. Anyway, to quote the article, they where charged with:
"engaging in disorderly conduct"
by a single lawyer who happened to stand in line. But seeing as the two where standing in a line (quite orderly) and not drunk, the USA has now become a place where you can actually get arrested for telling a joke.
You bunch of litigeous bastards: and I do mean all of you. Because it's the fault not just of some idot laywer without a funny bone in his body; it's the fault of the security guards who actually had the gall to respond to his request, and also the bystanders who let it happen.
"And we have laws against that sort of thing."
No, even you (the US) don't. Not even the PATRIOT ACT has provisions against being slightly too loud and telling bad jokes in public (unless you're busking for money without a license).
Now I have to agree with the people who say this article has no place on/.. I do however think the world should (yet again) be up in arms and filled with moral outrage that something like this can happen in a so-called-democracy. But then again...it really seems the thoughtpolice have done their job. Sad.
I wonder if this'll still be read?
on
Getting the Girl
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· Score: 1
What always makes me grin is the fact that women have been railing against the age old stereotype of 'boys play with cars, girls with dolls'.
But what do we find? The biggest dollhouse in the world is found on the pc, is called 'The Sims' and is just about the only game which has a uniformly large percentage of women playing it. And men like to explore and blow stuff up.
And then hear the women rail against the fashion/clothing/pink-barbie-doll games which are targetted towards women; with an example like 'The Sims', how can you blame the poor marketeers?
"Furthermore, since all lusers have admin privliges by default, any damage done by even an application can be severe"
Too true. There's an easy fix for it though: get the same type of user-switching Linux has (the function keys thing) and make it work just as fast. The main reason home-users on windows run as admin is because it's too much trouble to switch user-accounts just to move some data or something like that. And switching takes too long (fast user switching, sure!).
Fix that in windows and a lot more home users will make different accounts on the same machine.
And you don't know how to set up xp properly. XP runs on (+_) the same kernel 2000 does, but has upgraded on certain features. It's the most stable OS MS have released to date (ok, just about the/only/ stable OS they've released to date:))and more user/admin friendly than 2000.
Also, I've been led to believe the mayor reason companies won't upgrade to CP is due to the fact that they had just upgraded to 2000 and just will not spend the money to upgrade yet again to a platform which is only marginally better...it is/not/ due to 'xp running you'.
"It's the invasion of Afghanistan that did it. The Taliban thought they were safe backing bin Laden - they'd beat the Russians, their country was landlocked and a long way from US allies, and the terrain favored them. Big mistake. Three months later the Taliban was out of power//with its leaders dead, jailed, or on the run.//"
Wow..been watching too much Fox News? Who do you think is still raising hell in Afghanistan and Iraq?
"Allowing terrorists to operate from your territory against the US is not survivable."
I'm always in two minds when I see something like this: on the one hand it reminds me that the US did nothing about the IRA (which operated out of and got it's money from Ireland and the USA), and on the other hand it shows me again the fact that a lot of Anmericans have this really odd way of looking at terrorism. One attack in 2001 and all these notions go around in American's heads...but when you compare the mentality to nations who have suffered from terrorism (not just the one attack; think the UK...hell, even the Netherlands in the 80's!) then you realise that the US has this 'woe is me!' attitude which translates into the thinking that somehow you can have and win a 'war on terror' which can be won by blowing shit up instead of treating terrorism as an ongoing problem which can only be solved by solving the root causes. I'm not trying to diss you...it's just something I've observed.
"But we have bigger problems. Compared to AIDS, hurricanes, and other problems, the death toll from terrorism is low."
Spot on...the US needs more people who can put things into perspective.
As for the whole GIS data thing: if it is still available if you pay for it (from commercial services), making it unavailable through normal government data aqcuisition services is not going to provide security. So then why not execute your duty as a governing body and provide (at cost) that which the taxpayers have payed fro already? It's not called 'municipal service' for nothing.
Re:Not only Google looks for big brains
on
Defining Google
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· Score: 1
"So with 3 pirates, Pirate 1 will vote for any offer that gives him greater than 0 coins. (Remember that he is perfectly logical and wouldn't kill Pirate 3 out of spite like a real-life pirate would.) Since Pirate 3 knows that Pirate 1 is logical, the outcome here must be 1-0-99. Importantly, it will be 1-0-99 regardless of what happened in previous rounds when there were 4 or 5 pirates. I.e. even if Pirates 1, 2, 3, voted to kill Pirate 4 to "ensure an even distribution", when the power comes to Pirate 3's hands his absolute greed will take over and he will offer 1-0-99. "
I absolutely agree with this.
But the reasoning used is flawed: you're assuming that "The implied assumptions here are that all pirates are perfectly logical, they want to maximize the amount of money they get, they know that all the other pirates are equally logical and greedy (this is crucial!),",
but game theory tests have proved that this is not the case! People will screw one another over if they percieve that the outcome is 'unfair'. Analysis of the prisoner's dilema and other distribution games [check sciam.com] (with real world subjects) bear this out: people will prefer to have nothing than to have a sub-par/standard/whatever part of the spoils.
If one were to discount everything one assumes about human nature, or assume the pirates where computers, you'd be correct...but the fact remains that these are greedy pirates...who would not settle at one piece of gold, no matter how greedy they are: human nature (and game theory tests) show that they'd rather punish someone who'd only share 1% and then get nothing than take that 1%.
Anyway, I'll take the trouble to look up the sciam articles which show this (I'd really rather not, as it involves taking a trip down to the stacks:) ) if you really want me to, but the fact remains that pirates are human and not computers, so no matter how greedy they are, humanity comes into play (shit...the fact that greed comes into play automatically means that the 'no fair!' attitude comes into play too!). And the only way to play a human game is to make sure your opening bid doesn't offend.
Again, you would be so right if the players would be computers...but we're talking greedy, logical humans...who have enough humanity and logic to understand the concept of punishment.
Now if the puzzle had stated that any one attribute had been dominant (ie logic over greed), then it would have been a different ball game...but all attributes contribute evenly...in which case greed and 'no fair' reach a stalemate, meaning that between the two choices ( a)98-0-1-0-1 and b)0-50-50-0-0) b) has a greater chance of success...and with pirate 5's life on the line, you can bet you're ass he'll take the b) option knowing he won't piss anyone off with the measely offer of 1 gold piece.
Maybe I'm taking this logic puzzle too far by injecting human nature into what maybe was designed as a pure mathematical puzzle...but then again, maybe the puzzle should be stated more correctly, with the initial values specified more correctly and human natuire ruled out (and I should really quit reading those psychology books):P.
Re:Not only Google looks for big brains
on
Defining Google
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· Score: 1
Interesting problem...too bad the solution given doesn't make sense. One problem is the distribution of zero coins...why the step-over? It isn't neccessary and does not (despite what is said in the aolution) follow from any logic. Second problem is the ludicrous assumption that any other pirate will accept just a single coin when he can just vote against the plan and get the most senior pirate killed! The most senior pirate must know this, and that fact alone will force him to give his associates a better distribution scheme.
A more correct approach does start with the fact that 3 pirates must vote for the plan. An inoptimal approach would mean that the most senior pirate will take 34 gold and the other pirates (4 and 3) will take 33 gold. Now the senior pirate knows he can fudge about the distribution and take more gold for himself...but only up to a point where-past the others will say 'screw him, we vote against and then he dies! And the next pirate will have to give a more fair distribution'. Now the real problem arises when trying to find that optimal solution...because it's person dependant how much a certain person will be bilked out of. You could say that these pirates are all the same...in which case the previous still holds: you can kill a pirate to force a more even distribution! So what the first pirate has to do is to offer as much (or more) as a pirate could get in a four person distribution scheme, considering that pirate 4 can also be killed if he offers not enough.
Real world though? Pirate 5, if he wants to live, will give all the money to pirate 4 and 3 (50 gold each) to gain a mayority and live. Otherwise pirates 4 and 3 (bloodthirsty as they are) will have to vote against him, kill pirate 5 and, in the next 4 pirate round, take 50 gold each, gain the mayority and walk away.
So pirate 5 can only die or walk away with nothing...two other pirates (out of 5) force that optimum decision (for them) on him.
And how do you think the US amounted to anything? Yup, by flounting international copywright and patent law. In the early days, the US ripped technical feats off, and sold un-royaltied literature at cheap, cheap (warez-ed) prices. That is how countries get started.
So get off your high horse, because that is how all industrial nations (except britain, who had the first mover disadvantage...go read your economics books) started.
As to the rest of your xenophobic post...wow, you really don't get how the world works. Or has worked for the past couple of centuries.
Don't forget one thing: developping a game requires time spent by people who need to get paid during that period so they can eat. Steam provides distribution, not money so developers can quit their dayjobs to work full time on a computergame (which might not sell).
Please ask you friends at Valve if that means we will get to see some of the savings in the sales price for all the money they save on distribution, art costs, manufacturing costs and time/money spent on the whole physical product (disks, manuals etc).
I'm all for online distro's...but if it costs them less, why should we the consumers pay teh exact same price when we get less (and if the answer is 'because the market will bear it'...go look at why ebooks don't take off).
This post isn't meant to be nasty or anything...I'm just a consumer who doesn'ty enjoy being ripped off for more than neccessary.
Slashdot Mirror
Who cares about GDP? You can't spend it if you're dead by way of overheating/freezing/flooding etc.
:)
And let's not even think about what all the weather damage will do to GDP
I really don't beleive you got a '+5 insightfull' for what you just posted.
The correct response, other than a lot of swearing at your utter stupidity, or maybe locking you up in a few year's time on charges of murder and environmental polution, is maybe this:
You don't get the fucking point, do you? Who cares about China, India, and Brazil , when the US is still the largest polutor in the world?
And even that isn't the point.
The point is that polution is fucking up the climate. It isn't speculation, it isn't hypothesis, and with so much supporting data it isn't even really a theory. Consider it an axiom. Smarter people than you, who have studied chemistry, biology, ecology, meteorology, you know, people who should know, tell you that.
So we've established that the greenhouse effect et all exist: climate change due to human influence is real (to those who still want to debate the point: you really are dumb, go study a relevant field [or any hard science for that matter], have the most cursory glance at the data available and you too will realise there is nothing to debate except details).
Given that climate change is real, and knowing the effects (look at Mars: observing that planet lead to the discovery of the existance of the greenhouse effects in the first place), there is only one conlusion: we have to act or our children (and those who still have 50 years or more ahead of them) will suffer. Not just 'have to spend more on taxes' or 'will witness a draught or flood or two more'. No, we're talking about the effects of that last tsunami, but then all over the world: the water will not drain away and the damage will not be localised. Coastlines worldwide will be hit and the large production/distribution centres found there will be destroyed.
So it's no use playing the blame game. This environmental stuff doesn't give a shit: it doesn't compromise, it doesn't give a shit for politics or geographical boundaries. Chemistry is a bitch like that.
The Kyoto treaty isn't just a first step in the right direction. It is, at the moment, the only step on the table. It has to be taken. It is do that or do nothing. By itself it is a joke, of course, if you're shortsighted enough to think that it by itself is the solution to the problem. It's not: the USA weakened it so much during it's formation (before pulling out entirely) that it's not even a very definitive first step anymore. Even so...it's all there is at the moment, and we just don't have the time to wait another ten years to draft a better treaty and get the support. We need that time to draft the successor to it.
So, damian: you are a fucking git. Your point is just that: a cute little factiod which doesn't have anything to do with the point at hand, which is: we must do this thing now or in 50 years we have an insurmountable problem instead of just a huge fucking large problem. Your indifference is even worse than the 'but we need to gain a relative economical advantage'-crowd (who are dumb enough, because one thing they fail to realise is that, yes, it will cost money, but that money is going into the development of new technologies, which need to be manufactured, which means new jobs created all around...hopw's that for economic advantage? Plus, you get a place to live!) because they at least recognise the problem at hand.
But no matter what happens, there is a bright point: remember that social security problem? In the future it won't be. All the old people who could have done something will, in a couple of decades, be left to rot in the streets by the kids who are born now or are too young to influence the process, because as they grow up, they'll realiser that those old bastards did this to them: they fucked up their own planet and did nothing to stop it...so why the fuck should we pay them anything, or care for them? They didn't for us, even though the evidence was staring them, in the face; all they did was say, like the bum on the street who didn't pay his morgage-payments, 'where is the economic advantage in it?', or 'hey, but in a couple of decades, those other countries will be reaching our level of polution' even though it was our own level of polution has already done all the damage.
check out www.3dconnexion.com and have a look out for the spaceball 4000. It's used quite a bit for CAD/CAM in shops which have the money. Also a bit in other 3D, but it's far from standard...wish I had one for 3dmax, but even on ebay the things useually go for more than $200.
That's a fine sentiment, but there is one thing it ignores: kids spend just as much time (if not more) at school as they do with their parents. This time distribution must mean that schools have to be parttialy responsible for the education (in the moral sense, as well as the purely scientific/artistic/gymnastic senses) of their charges. Which is where PTA's come in: a way for parents to influence the way the surrogate parents (ie the school) raises their kids in the parents absence.
"Game developers are in a losing battle against piracy."
This point comes up a lot...but I have yet to see numbers which actually substantiate this, even a little.
The numbers I see all point towards the opposite; games, music and video are all making record profits. Let me say that again: the respective industries have made the most money they ever have in the past year.
Even more to the point, there have been studies which show that piracy actually increases sales, due to the extra exposure people get to something they would otherwise never have bought: piracy has been shown to increase sales.
OTOH I have yet to see an independant study (not results paid for by the *IAA) which conclusively proves that piracy does lead to reduced profits.
Well, usually it's a tiny minority who actually know what is going on/how something works/have studied a problem for a large part of their lives. The mayority only has the information which is derived from this minority, and is filtered by politics and media.
So, yeah: put your trust in the minority who's expertise is somethng they've worked hard to get, instead of the mayority who has no clue.
Of course, there's the problem of identifying the minority who actually know what they're talking about, and aren't crackpots...
"Entering a nation with a fake or expired VISA is clearly wrong and unneccessary"
True...so why the fuck would a terrorist do such a dumb, stupid thing? It's relatively easy to get visa's. If you have the backing of an organisation with even just a modicum of cash, it's real easy to meet the requirements for obtaining a visa. Not doing so as a terrorist would frankly get you nominated for a Darwin.
Someone with a bad visa (or without one) is likely to be an economic drain on a country, or likely to go out and mug someone; that's the reason he/she didn't get a visa: not on account of terrorism, but because he was either poor or didn't have enough (formal) education.
It's just common sense: a terrorist who is any threat at all will have all his papers in order. So go the way of madness, and do what the UK just tried to do: make it legal to lock up everyone who has their shit in order, !because he might be a terrorist!.
As for your comment about that Jesus guy: I don't think he meant it as an excuse to never critisice anything, ever. Or to get you out of your responsibiliies, for that matter. And please remember two other facts: Budha was no slough at moralising either, and the movement Jesus left in his wake has been the most bloody, corrupting, ignorance-promoting, overpopulating-and-let-the-world-be-damned cult the world has seen for the past couple of thousand years.
"So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?"
Yup...kinda like GWB put protesters in 'free speech zones' miles from where their protest could have any impact whatsoever, and like the police where instructed to harshly break up any protests the past couple of years.
"So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?"
Yup, they did: but then again, not only does the US also have the deathpenalty, but one could very well argue that theirs is a more humane alternative to torturing people for the rest of their lives in Guantanamo Bay.
"So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?"
Pretty much: the only religion banned is Falun Gong; christians, budhists etc etc etc have free reign. But don't go sp[eaking revolution, or you'll get a visit which looks pretty much like how the Secret Service shows up on your doorstep if you say something derogetory about the US Prez.
"So the Chinese government does not make huge amounts of money from prison labor?"
Nah...they make a bit of money, but not gopbs of cash...manual labour just doesn't bring in the bacan like high-tech. Just look at the income american prisons get from their manual labour, which operates under pretty much the same policy. And if you want to see the darker side of it, go look at what happens in Texan jails.
"And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?"
Didn't hit Taiowan, just let 'em know who has the big guns. Kinda exactly unlike what the US is doing in the middle east: the US is bombing the hell out of shit, creating a massive deathcount, destabalising a country and the whole region...and that's somehow better than just launching a missile and not hitting anything?
"Just asking if these are all myths that I have seen on TV?"
No...but there is this saying about casting stones and sin, and another one about beams of wood and splinters in your own or someone else's eyes.
"For the same reason why Europeans think we're a country of hicks driving around in a pickup with shotguns who elected a idiot to office"
What? You aren't, you don't and you didn't?
"of fade between two video streams and render back to a file,"
Oh, kind of like how you do a textureblend between two or more textures using ramping opacity and render to any surface?
Had you read the FA, you would have noticed that, hey! Lo and behold: 3DEdit does exactly what you want: with a 5700 (absolute minimum req), it does the work of fading "between two video streams and render back to a file" just shy of real-time.
So: be impressed.
And next it'll be:
"The school district has only decided not to sanction sexual education on school grounds on the grounds that it involves an activity that is not intended for kids under 16. There is nothing wrong with that."
I swear, you have been conditioned to respect rules which have replaced common sense, all in the name of avoiding law-suits.
"I realize that a few parents did permit the event, but what about the majority of parents?"
Rarely trust the mayority; there are places where children are taught that evolution is not science, and creationism deserves equal time. There are places where kids aren't taught propper sex-ed, and teenage pregnancies rise.
"theories, including creationism"
But there's the rub: creationism is not a theory; it's at best a hypothesis, and a bad one at that. Hell, it's not even a scientific hypothesis, as it doesn't make predictions (it can't!)and is therefore untestable, and it does not reduce complexity (it only adds complexity in the form of an inexplicable being of infinite complexity).
Creationism is not science. If you think so, google for 'the Scientific Method'.
"Besides, science admits that spontaneous generation happened in the past -- otherwise, whence did life evolve in the first place? Creationism, in its most fundamental form, is that a Sentience caused that first spontaneous generation."
And that is the crux of the matter: creationism cannot explain that first moment, except in terms of the inexplicable.
"
You're confusing microevolution with macroevolution."
That's irrelevant. Evolution has been observed and can even be made to happen. It is the name of an observable and testable process. Timescales are irrelevant in this case.
Now where is your example of micro-creationism? I can give a ton of examples of (observed) evolution.
"The freedom of speech is not a freedom to be a shithead."
/.. I do however think the world should (yet again) be up in arms and filled with moral outrage that something like this can happen in a so-called-democracy.
Actually. it pretty much does.
"They were, deliberately and with malicious intent,"
Yup. They where doing it intentionaly and there was malice towards lawyers involved...but:
"making a public nuisance of themselves."
is not true. They where maybe being too loud...but even that I doubt, seeing as they where 70 years old. Anyway, to quote the article, they where charged with:
"engaging in disorderly conduct"
by a single lawyer who happened to stand in line. But seeing as the two where standing in a line (quite orderly) and not drunk, the USA has now become a place where you can actually get arrested for telling a joke.
You bunch of litigeous bastards: and I do mean all of you. Because it's the fault not just of some idot laywer without a funny bone in his body; it's the fault of the security guards who actually had the gall to respond to his request, and also the bystanders who let it happen.
"And we have laws against that sort of thing."
No, even you (the US) don't. Not even the PATRIOT ACT has provisions against being slightly too loud and telling bad jokes in public (unless you're busking for money without a license).
Now I have to agree with the people who say this article has no place on
But then again...it really seems the thoughtpolice have done their job. Sad.
What always makes me grin is the fact that women have been railing against the age old stereotype of 'boys play with cars, girls with dolls'.
But what do we find? The biggest dollhouse in the world is found on the pc, is called 'The Sims' and is just about the only game which has a uniformly large percentage of women playing it. And men like to explore and blow stuff up.
And then hear the women rail against the fashion/clothing/pink-barbie-doll games which are targetted towards women; with an example like 'The Sims', how can you blame the poor marketeers?
"Furthermore, since all lusers have admin privliges by default, any damage done by even an application can be severe"
Too true. There's an easy fix for it though: get the same type of user-switching Linux has (the function keys thing) and make it work just as fast. The main reason home-users on windows run as admin is because it's too much trouble to switch user-accounts just to move some data or something like that. And switching takes too long (fast user switching, sure!).
Fix that in windows and a lot more home users will make different accounts on the same machine.
"You run Windows 2000. Windows XP runs you"
/only/ stable OS they've released to date :))and more user/admin friendly than 2000.
/not/ due to 'xp running you'.
And you don't know how to set up xp properly. XP runs on (+_) the same kernel 2000 does, but has upgraded on certain features. It's the most stable OS MS have released to date (ok, just about the
Also, I've been led to believe the mayor reason companies won't upgrade to CP is due to the fact that they had just upgraded to 2000 and just will not spend the money to upgrade yet again to a platform which is only marginally better...it is
A much more true paraphrasing would be 'those who know history are doomed to watch it repeat itself'.
"It's the invasion of Afghanistan that did it. The Taliban thought they were safe backing bin Laden - they'd beat the Russians, their country was landlocked and a long way from US allies, and the terrain favored them. Big mistake. Three months later the Taliban was out of power //with its leaders dead, jailed, or on the run.//"
Wow..been watching too much Fox News? Who do you think is still raising hell in Afghanistan and Iraq?
"Allowing terrorists to operate from your territory against the US is not survivable."
I'm always in two minds when I see something like this: on the one hand it reminds me that the US did nothing about the IRA (which operated out of and got it's money from Ireland and the USA), and on the other hand it shows me again the fact that a lot of Anmericans have this really odd way of looking at terrorism. One attack in 2001 and all these notions go around in American's heads...but when you compare the mentality to nations who have suffered from terrorism (not just the one attack; think the UK...hell, even the Netherlands in the 80's!) then you realise that the US has this 'woe is me!' attitude which translates into the thinking that somehow you can have and win a 'war on terror' which can be won by blowing shit up instead of treating terrorism as an ongoing problem which can only be solved by solving the root causes. I'm not trying to diss you...it's just something I've observed.
"But we have bigger problems. Compared to AIDS, hurricanes, and other problems, the death toll from terrorism is low."
Spot on...the US needs more people who can put things into perspective.
As for the whole GIS data thing: if it is still available if you pay for it (from commercial services), making it unavailable through normal government data aqcuisition services is not going to provide security. So then why not execute your duty as a governing body and provide (at cost) that which the taxpayers have payed fro already? It's not called 'municipal service' for nothing.
"So with 3 pirates, Pirate 1 will vote for any offer that gives him greater than 0 coins. (Remember that he is perfectly logical and wouldn't kill Pirate 3 out of spite like a real-life pirate would.) Since Pirate 3 knows that Pirate 1 is logical, the outcome here must be 1-0-99. Importantly, it will be 1-0-99 regardless of what happened in previous rounds when there were 4 or 5 pirates. I.e. even if Pirates 1, 2, 3, voted to kill Pirate 4 to "ensure an even distribution", when the power comes to Pirate 3's hands his absolute greed will take over and he will offer 1-0-99. "
:) ) if you really want me to, but the fact remains that pirates are human and not computers, so no matter how greedy they are, humanity comes into play (shit...the fact that greed comes into play automatically means that the 'no fair!' attitude comes into play too!). And the only way to play a human game is to make sure your opening bid doesn't offend.
:P.
I absolutely agree with this.
But the reasoning used is flawed: you're assuming that "The implied assumptions here are that all pirates are perfectly logical, they want to maximize the amount of money they get, they know that all the other pirates are equally logical and greedy (this is crucial!),",
but game theory tests have proved that this is not the case! People will screw one another over if they percieve that the outcome is 'unfair'. Analysis of the prisoner's dilema and other distribution games [check sciam.com] (with real world subjects) bear this out: people will prefer to have nothing than to have a sub-par/standard/whatever part of the spoils.
If one were to discount everything one assumes about human nature, or assume the pirates where computers, you'd be correct...but the fact remains that these are greedy pirates...who would not settle at one piece of gold, no matter how greedy they are: human nature (and game theory tests) show that they'd rather punish someone who'd only share 1% and then get nothing than take that 1%.
Anyway, I'll take the trouble to look up the sciam articles which show this (I'd really rather not, as it involves taking a trip down to the stacks
Again, you would be so right if the players would be computers...but we're talking greedy, logical humans...who have enough humanity and logic to understand the concept of punishment.
Now if the puzzle had stated that any one attribute had been dominant (ie logic over greed), then it would have been a different ball game...but all attributes contribute evenly...in which case greed and 'no fair' reach a stalemate, meaning that between the two choices ( a)98-0-1-0-1 and b)0-50-50-0-0) b) has a greater chance of success...and with pirate 5's life on the line, you can bet you're ass he'll take the b) option knowing he won't piss anyone off with the measely offer of 1 gold piece.
Maybe I'm taking this logic puzzle too far by injecting human nature into what maybe was designed as a pure mathematical puzzle...but then again, maybe the puzzle should be stated more correctly, with the initial values specified more correctly and human natuire ruled out (and I should really quit reading those psychology books)
Interesting problem...too bad the solution given doesn't make sense. One problem is the distribution of zero coins...why the step-over? It isn't neccessary and does not (despite what is said in the aolution) follow from any logic. Second problem is the ludicrous assumption that any other pirate will accept just a single coin when he can just vote against the plan and get the most senior pirate killed! The most senior pirate must know this, and that fact alone will force him to give his associates a better distribution scheme.
A more correct approach does start with the fact that 3 pirates must vote for the plan. An inoptimal approach would mean that the most senior pirate will take 34 gold and the other pirates (4 and 3) will take 33 gold.
Now the senior pirate knows he can fudge about the distribution and take more gold for himself...but only up to a point where-past the others will say 'screw him, we vote against and then he dies! And the next pirate will have to give a more fair distribution'.
Now the real problem arises when trying to find that optimal solution...because it's person dependant how much a certain person will be bilked out of.
You could say that these pirates are all the same...in which case the previous still holds: you can kill a pirate to force a more even distribution! So what the first pirate has to do is to offer as much (or more) as a pirate could get in a four person distribution scheme, considering that pirate 4 can also be killed if he offers not enough.
Real world though? Pirate 5, if he wants to live, will give all the money to pirate 4 and 3 (50 gold each) to gain a mayority and live. Otherwise pirates 4 and 3 (bloodthirsty as they are) will have to vote against him, kill pirate 5 and, in the next 4 pirate round, take 50 gold each, gain the mayority and walk away.
So pirate 5 can only die or walk away with nothing...two other pirates (out of 5) force that optimum decision (for them) on him.
And how do you think the US amounted to anything? Yup, by flounting international copywright and patent law. In the early days, the US ripped technical feats off, and sold un-royaltied literature at cheap, cheap (warez-ed) prices. That is how countries get started.
So get off your high horse, because that is how all industrial nations (except britain, who had the first mover disadvantage...go read your economics books) started.
As to the rest of your xenophobic post...wow, you really don't get how the world works. Or has worked for the past couple of centuries.
Don't forget one thing: developping a game requires time spent by people who need to get paid during that period so they can eat. Steam provides distribution, not money so developers can quit their dayjobs to work full time on a computergame (which might not sell).
The death of the publisher is grossly exagerated.
Please ask you friends at Valve if that means we will get to see some of the savings in the sales price for all the money they save on distribution, art costs, manufacturing costs and time/money spent on the whole physical product (disks, manuals etc).
I'm all for online distro's...but if it costs them less, why should we the consumers pay teh exact same price when we get less (and if the answer is 'because the market will bear it'...go look at why ebooks don't take off).
This post isn't meant to be nasty or anything...I'm just a consumer who doesn'ty enjoy being ripped off for more than neccessary.