Perhaps if they let you track Wiimotes with this device it could yield greater accuracy, but then you are right about the latency issue.
Well the genius of the wiimote is that it puts the camera in the controller, and the things the camera tracks are fixed points. This makes measuring Z-axis easy (distance between the points) as well as pitch (apparent angle), using only the small wiimote.
Whereas to measure tilt or Z, this method basically requires you to hold a sensor-bar-sized object (the steering wheels with the painted bar). In fact, you could play a lot of Wii games this way (ones that don't need the accelerometers), by holding the sensor bar in your hand and putting the wiimote on your TV. I think it's obvious why this is an inferior method.
On the other hand, what is cool about this is that you can use just about anything as a sensor, and it's use of a cheap webcam.
I love that people can state anything with conviction and as long as it sounds remotely scientific most people will just believe it. If you actually recall your high school physics, the law of conservation of energy only applies to a closed system, which this does NOT have to be and is probably not.
Oh how insightful. So where is this extra outside energy coming from? Is it solar energy? Then it's a solar powered car. Is it some already known form of fuel? Then it's powered by that fuel. In no case is it powered solely by water.
Now I am sure this may well be vaporware (no pun intended) but there is tech out there that does this that has been demonstrated to work. One comes to mind is the Purdue University prof that was making rounds recently talking about aluminum alloy catalyst that separates water on contact.
Um, normal aluminum separates water on contact. It's a perfectly common oxidization reaction, Al + H2O -> AlO + H2. If you'd actually read what the Purdue team did, they didn't "catalyze" anything. They made an aluminum alloy including gallium in order to prevent the byproduct, aluminum oxide, from forming a layer over the aluminum as it normally does which prevents further reaction. That's why your aluminum siding doesn't rust though, because the AlO layer that forms almost immediately prevents it. By preventing that layer from forming, it allows the reaction to continue until all the aluminum is consumed. They have in no way changed the basic reaction.
The most important bit there being all the aluminum is consumed. Aluminum is the fuel in this case, with aluminum oxide as the waste. And while it's a neat concept, aluminum powered car isn't going to get anyone excited since aluminum is expensive dollar-wise, and cracking AlO (the form it is typically found in the ground in) back into aluminum is expensive energy-wise.
They never claimed to be able to produce energy using water as the sole consumable, so stop smearing the good name of Purdue by making their researchers sound like quacks.
While looking up high school physics, look up the word "catalyst" as well:-)
I think you need a refresher too, since this is a perfect example of you suffering from what you claimed in your first paragraph. These hacks claim their car runs on water, cracking the water into H2 which is then burned to produce water and energy which is what is used to crack the water (oh and make the car move). In other words, they are claiming a H20 -> H2 + O -> H2O cycle with a net energy surplus.
If you think "catalyst" is a magic word that makes that possible, then... you're right! And for only $1000, I'll send you instructions on how to build your water->water cycle perpetual motion machine using common and low cost parts, along with a 1 lb packet of Secret Catalyst Sauce, which you'll never have to replace! The base design will allow anyone to build a unit to power their home, while for an additional $200, you can get plans that will allow an auto mechanic to replace your car engine! Just send an email with the subject "Catalyst = Perpetual Motion" to sales@LawsOfThermodynamicsAreForBitches.com to receive payment information.
Ah I see. From yer link:
The gallium is critical to the process because it hinders the formation of a skin normally created on aluminum's surface after oxidation. This skin usually prevents oxygen from reacting with aluminum, acting as a barrier. Preventing the skin's formation allows the reaction to continue until all of the aluminum is used. So it's an aluminum and water fueled car. Well that's pretty neat, I guess.
Also, hooray for Professor Pirate! That was worth it just for the eye patch.
No, common law is a type of legal system, a system in which the law itself is not strictly limited to statutes, and precedent carries legal weight. It's also the system we use. And, since our common law inherits from the English Common Law system -- and in common law, "inherits" is not merely a historical footnote but rather means that history is incorporated as part of our own system -- the Magna Carta is in fact a part of our legal system.
Well, playing devil's advocate: it would be illegal, it would not be unconstitutional in the sense that it was cruel and unusual punishment.
IANACL, but "punishment" in that clause means the official effect imposed on someone for violating the law and being convicted of such. Being sentenced to a beating would violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause. A policeman dragging you into the bushes after pulling you over for speeding and beating the crap out of you is illegal but not unconstitutional. Do you see the difference?
Yeah, the difference is obvious, that's why I said pass a law that would allow the police to torture you. So on what basis would it be illegal, if the law that made the act legal is not itself illegal?
I understand that it is Scalia's argument that only things overtly specified as being for the state-sanctioned official purpose of 'punishment' count. I think that much like it was argued that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal, state-sanctioned torture is inherently a punishment, for crimes real or imagined.
Or, to put it in terms of the example Scalia used:
STAHL: Well I think if you're in custody, and you have a policeman who's taken you into custody-
SCALIA: And you say he's punishing you? What's he punishing you for?... When he's hurting you in order to get information from you, you wouldn't say he's punishing you. What is he punishing you for? He's punishing you for not cooperating. Isn't it obvious? That's the whole nature of the interrogator/detainee relationship: Do what I say, tell me what I want to know, or I will punish your non-compliance with pain. It's not like torture is part of some procedure that produces the truth, it's not like detainees are tortured as a matter of course as part of some crazy lie detector test.
But hey, maybe that's not always the case. Which is why I made my example. A law that authorized police to torture, so long as the torture was not intended as punishment in any way, and was solely for the cop's amusement. Constitutional?
And a communicator that you sometimes have to touch in order to speak, and other times not, for who knows what reasons.
If they didn't have to touch it, then that means the channel was already open. Which means five minutes before you saw him use his communicator without touching it, the bridge got to listen to Captain Picard heave a havana.
My sole argument is that, under US law, the Magna Carta cannot be used as the basis of the argument, because it is not part of the US legal system.
The United States operates under a Common Law system, so in a very real sense it is. It's non-binding in a statutory sense, but that is not the only sense that matters in our legal system.
That is BS. If what you're saying were true, anyone caught with drugs could be held indefinitely without trial too - you know that's not the case.
No, you misunderstood. The only connection between the War on Drugs and the War on Terror that he was drawing was that they are both endless wars. Clearly the legal ramifications of both are completely different, since the War on Terror includes, as a subset, actual war.
I do agree with everything you said, though. Oh and to my knowledge no, nobody released from Gitmo has had any compensation.
That's the horrendously sad part of this ruling. Reminds me of an interview I saw with Scalia saying something about whether torture in questioning a subject could actually be considered "punishment" and hence exempt from the cruel and unusual standard.
Haha, oh that's rich. Hey, we should pass a law that lets prison guards torture the prisoners, under the stipulation that torture not be used for punishment, but only for the guard's amusement!
That'd be Constitutional, right Scalia?
Or hey, why not just legalize prison rape? That's not about punishment, after all, but dominance. Perfectly Constitutional!
I must have bought the wrong one then. It was the only Steelcase model they had on the showroom floor, and sadly my limited time sitting in it there didn't reveal the flaw.:(
You guys need to get your story straight. It was, actually, a preference. McCain implied he felt that Iraq was just like Japan and Germany, countries that we've "occupied" (in his terms) for more than half a decade. The sheer ridiculousness of either implying either country is "occupied" (we have troops stationed in each, but not in an occupying sense), or that Iraq is anything like those two is what makes McCain's comments all the more ridiculous.
The thing that got me it was the way in which he dodged spirit of the question by answering it literally. He was asked when he felt the troops would come home, but the real question, the thing Americans care about, is when will our troops not be fighting and dying in Iraq. Sure the question asker and a lot of Americans assume this means the troops would come home, and that's not necessarily true. If "I'm being shipped out to Iraq" meant as much as "I'm being shipped out to Japan", then Americans wouldn't be so concerned. So McCain ignored the real question in order to answer the trivial one, first by implicitly assuming that Iraq is going to transform into post-war Japan, and then saying our troops would be there for a long time, and would that really be so bad?
No it wouldn't, but now tell me, wiseguy, when exactly is this magical transformation going to happen? When is the fighting and dying going to end, such that our troops being in Iraq is no bigger a deal than our troops being in Japan? Was it not obvious enough that this is what we really want to know?
Not that I'm surprised and thus particularly offended by a politician running for office dodging a question. It's that he couldn't dodge the question in a way that at least acknowledged the question that was being asked. And that bodes badly for him. Most Americans now think the war was a bad idea in the first place, they think we should pull our troops out if not immediately then at least soon, and they also don't think that America can actually "win" over there, whatever that means. In other words, we're worried that as long as our troops are there they are going to be fighting and dying for a lost cause. They aren't even considering the idea that Iraq is going to transform into Iowa like the idiot neocons thought and like McCain's answer seemed to assume. So it's not just the silly comparison between Japan/Germany and Iraq. It's completely missing the core issue that many voters have.
Sad, too. McCain was such a strong critic of the President and his war policies. If he had ran as an Independent in 2004, I'd have voted for him, or as a Republican in 2000. 2008? No damn way.
I think what I have is the Leap, and I have to say that while I think it's a very well built chair that could be comfortable, I made a mistake buying it. Basically, it's not made for shorties like me. Even at its minimum height, the lumbar support is jabbing into the middle of my back. But outside of that it's so adjustable and built with good contours so I think it would be fine.
I'm hoping to pawn it off on a friend and go out and buy an Aeron.:)
So ignorance is bliss? I never knew if that was true or not. But I guess if you're happy that proves it.
Let me quote from upthread: Not irrational at all. Kosovo and Iraq both involved a rejection of diplomatic options that were far from exhausted, in order to launch a military attack that had gruesome consequences for civilian populations.
Superficial similarities that deliberately gloss over the realities of the situations, just as a starter the fact that in one case hostilities were already in progress before we interfered. Yes it's a valid point of comparison for the folly of aggressive foreign policies. You'd have to be a complete, utter, and most offensively a deliberate idiot to think that makes them the same.
Too bad I'm registered as an independent, that just shoots a hole in the "partisan" theory. All the parties and all their politicians suck, just for different reasons.
And of course if you're an idiot, "all their politicians suck" becomes "all their politicians suck equally much". This must be the same black/white nuance-aka-reality-doesn't-matter stupidity that makes you think Kosovo and Iraq are in any way equal. And despite being independent, you still see everything black and white enough that anyone who disagrees with your retarded assessment must themselves be a partisan. Go show.
There is no justification for that level of ignorance of reality staring you in the face. Not all bad things are equally bad. Not all failures of diplomacy are equally disastrous. Not all hot things are equally hot. Some will merely scald you, others will burn your flesh to the bone.
I don't know, how do you feel every day when you wake up?
Seriously, no rational comparison between the two puts them equal. None. You tried the partisan angle, and it is a failure. I think that just reveals your own reasoning on the issue though.
I fucking hate Bill Clinton and all of his military adventures. Also, equating Kosovo with Iraq is fucking retarded. This is plain as day, so have a nice one.
On tech issues, he's entirely wrong?... Do the people on slashdot who support him actually read his "Issues" section on his web site, or do they just stop at "Yes we can."
Yes we can read his website, and for my money he's right on more issues than he is wrong on, and most importantly he's right on the issues that are actually up in the air. He's for net neutrality and against telcom immunity, while McCain is the opposite. He's for IP protection, and McCain... is against? Yeah right.
Intellectual Property isn't going away any time soon. Sorry, it sucks I know, but it's true. However, the fundamental nature of the internet may be going away, and winning that fight is more important.
Go ahead and disagree with his stance on some particular issues; I know I do. But "entirely wrong" is wrong, excepting of course the possibility that I would think you are wrong on many tech issues.
For example: Men probably have more upper body strength, and more muscle period because of testosterone. Women have a lower center of gravity, and an easy target (balls) with which to completely disable the man.
Yeah, there are advantages that go both ways. I couldn't say they necessarily balance out. The lower center of gravity is very helpful, yes. Also in a lot of cases being smaller is an advantage because it means you are faster. In some styles where speed is emphasized, the men would do anything they could to avoid building muscle -mass-, just tone, because they didn't want to be heavier and thus slower.
In the end I think the statistical observation is true that men have the advantage. For specific but not necessarily extreme examples, those advantages may mean nothing or less than nothing.
Look, when you're talking about the "average" woman and the "average" man, of course the observation that the average woman isn't as strong as the average man is true. The "average" man could beat up the "average" woman, yeah, especially since the "average" woman has no training. Big surprise there.
But you can't apply the average to any particular example, and it's not nearly as automatically lopsided as you contend. You're claiming that unless the woman is extremely skilled, and the man has never so much as play-wrestled in their life, the woman loses. That's just wrong. The physics is not a powerful as you think, and sometimes works in the opposite direction. This notion that a simple clothesline is going to drop a woman who is in shape and not themselves inept is nonsense.
(if she's >140-150lbs, atleast from my experience with guys I know who weigh 130-140 and even they workout, it's simply too little mass to contend with a much larger opponent unless you know how to fight)
See, the whole point of discussion is people who know how to fight. When I was a 120lb wrestler I could beat 190lbers who also "knew how to fight", I was just better than them. They weren't inept, but their mass was simply not so great an advantage that it couldn't be overcome. Leverage works wonders, you know?
And as I just said, I saw an ~130 lb woman drop a 250lb man who knew how to fight. Yes, she had to know how to fight herself, but she wasn't the greatest fighter ever, I saw her get schooled by very skilled men closer to her size. In this case, though, the man had some serious physics working against them -- namely that big objects move more slowly.
As to 'the girls I beat up on' they asked me to spar with them every time
I was just saying that you kicked their butts, and that they sucked. I assumed this was a consensual sparring match, thus my mock Onion headline about them thinking they are tougher than they are?:P
They never learned how to deal with a larger attacker. It's not that it's impossible or even really that hard, it's that they didn't know what to do in that case but were nevertheless overconfident.
What I'm trying to say is, for the most part in a man vs woman situation, barring weapons and such, the woman loses almost every time unless she has top notch training (or a surprise disabling move to one of the only 3 weak spots that really count) and he is completely inept.
You keep saying there are only 3 weak spots that matter. Someone should introduce you to the knees and elbows. The best thing about them is that unlike the 3 you list, these aren't very well defended (by either innate reflex or intention) and are relatively large targets since you don't need to be precise. Not to mention that while even the worst kick to the nads is a temporary setback, kick the side of somebody's knee with the meager force required and they aren't going to be chasing you until they get out of their cast. But this is straying off topic (though it might be worth mentioning at a self defense class).
My point is, your extrapolation from the statistical averages and a few overconfident women that the woman loses unless she is top notch and the man is inept is simply wrong. A top-notch trained woman could be most men, especially those who think their size gives them an insurmountable advantage. However for a top-notch man vs a top-notch woman, then any difference in mass and strength could be telling, but even then not automatically. It's just not that simple.
And venturing back to the actual subject of the article and the OP, any female character in AoC can be assumed to have been trained in combat well enough that inherent gender differences should have no appreciable effect (and any other way of designing the game is silly).
Slashdot Mirror
No, it means you have no better comeback than "I know you are but what am I". *yawn* Go whine some more.
That's a great non sequitor, but it means nothing except that you know you're overly sensitive. 1st reply was spot on.
Perhaps if they let you track Wiimotes with this device it could yield greater accuracy, but then you are right about the latency issue.
Well the genius of the wiimote is that it puts the camera in the controller, and the things the camera tracks are fixed points. This makes measuring Z-axis easy (distance between the points) as well as pitch (apparent angle), using only the small wiimote.
Whereas to measure tilt or Z, this method basically requires you to hold a sensor-bar-sized object (the steering wheels with the painted bar). In fact, you could play a lot of Wii games this way (ones that don't need the accelerometers), by holding the sensor bar in your hand and putting the wiimote on your TV. I think it's obvious why this is an inferior method.
On the other hand, what is cool about this is that you can use just about anything as a sensor, and it's use of a cheap webcam.
Taco was whining, IMHO.
And you're overly sensitive, IMHO.
I love that people can state anything with conviction and as long as it sounds remotely scientific most people will just believe it. If you actually recall your high school physics, the law of conservation of energy only applies to a closed system, which this does NOT have to be and is probably not.
:-)
Oh how insightful. So where is this extra outside energy coming from? Is it solar energy? Then it's a solar powered car. Is it some already known form of fuel? Then it's powered by that fuel. In no case is it powered solely by water.
Now I am sure this may well be vaporware (no pun intended) but there is tech out there that does this that has been demonstrated to work. One comes to mind is the Purdue University prof that was making rounds recently talking about aluminum alloy catalyst that separates water on contact.
Um, normal aluminum separates water on contact. It's a perfectly common oxidization reaction, Al + H2O -> AlO + H2. If you'd actually read what the Purdue team did, they didn't "catalyze" anything. They made an aluminum alloy including gallium in order to prevent the byproduct, aluminum oxide, from forming a layer over the aluminum as it normally does which prevents further reaction. That's why your aluminum siding doesn't rust though, because the AlO layer that forms almost immediately prevents it. By preventing that layer from forming, it allows the reaction to continue until all the aluminum is consumed. They have in no way changed the basic reaction.
The most important bit there being all the aluminum is consumed. Aluminum is the fuel in this case, with aluminum oxide as the waste. And while it's a neat concept, aluminum powered car isn't going to get anyone excited since aluminum is expensive dollar-wise, and cracking AlO (the form it is typically found in the ground in) back into aluminum is expensive energy-wise.
They never claimed to be able to produce energy using water as the sole consumable, so stop smearing the good name of Purdue by making their researchers sound like quacks.
While looking up high school physics, look up the word "catalyst" as well
I think you need a refresher too, since this is a perfect example of you suffering from what you claimed in your first paragraph. These hacks claim their car runs on water, cracking the water into H2 which is then burned to produce water and energy which is what is used to crack the water (oh and make the car move). In other words, they are claiming a H20 -> H2 + O -> H2O cycle with a net energy surplus.
If you think "catalyst" is a magic word that makes that possible, then... you're right! And for only $1000, I'll send you instructions on how to build your water->water cycle perpetual motion machine using common and low cost parts, along with a 1 lb packet of Secret Catalyst Sauce, which you'll never have to replace! The base design will allow anyone to build a unit to power their home, while for an additional $200, you can get plans that will allow an auto mechanic to replace your car engine! Just send an email with the subject "Catalyst = Perpetual Motion" to sales@LawsOfThermodynamicsAreForBitches.com to receive payment information.
Also, hooray for Professor Pirate! That was worth it just for the eye patch.
No, common law is a type of legal system, a system in which the law itself is not strictly limited to statutes, and precedent carries legal weight. It's also the system we use. And, since our common law inherits from the English Common Law system -- and in common law, "inherits" is not merely a historical footnote but rather means that history is incorporated as part of our own system -- the Magna Carta is in fact a part of our legal system.
IANACL, but "punishment" in that clause means the official effect imposed on someone for violating the law and being convicted of such. Being sentenced to a beating would violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause. A policeman dragging you into the bushes after pulling you over for speeding and beating the crap out of you is illegal but not unconstitutional. Do you see the difference?
Yeah, the difference is obvious, that's why I said pass a law that would allow the police to torture you. So on what basis would it be illegal, if the law that made the act legal is not itself illegal?
I understand that it is Scalia's argument that only things overtly specified as being for the state-sanctioned official purpose of 'punishment' count. I think that much like it was argued that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal, state-sanctioned torture is inherently a punishment, for crimes real or imagined.
Or, to put it in terms of the example Scalia used: STAHL: Well I think if you're in custody, and you have a policeman who's taken you into custody-
SCALIA: And you say he's punishing you? What's he punishing you for?
But hey, maybe that's not always the case. Which is why I made my example. A law that authorized police to torture, so long as the torture was not intended as punishment in any way, and was solely for the cop's amusement. Constitutional?
And a communicator that you sometimes have to touch in order to speak, and other times not, for who knows what reasons.
If they didn't have to touch it, then that means the channel was already open. Which means five minutes before you saw him use his communicator without touching it, the bridge got to listen to Captain Picard heave a havana.
My sole argument is that, under US law, the Magna Carta cannot be used as the basis of the argument, because it is not part of the US legal system.
The United States operates under a Common Law system, so in a very real sense it is. It's non-binding in a statutory sense, but that is not the only sense that matters in our legal system.
That is BS. If what you're saying were true, anyone caught with drugs could be held indefinitely without trial too - you know that's not the case.
No, you misunderstood. The only connection between the War on Drugs and the War on Terror that he was drawing was that they are both endless wars. Clearly the legal ramifications of both are completely different, since the War on Terror includes, as a subset, actual war.
I do agree with everything you said, though. Oh and to my knowledge no, nobody released from Gitmo has had any compensation.
That's the horrendously sad part of this ruling. Reminds me of an interview I saw with Scalia saying something about whether torture in questioning a subject could actually be considered "punishment" and hence exempt from the cruel and unusual standard.
Haha, oh that's rich. Hey, we should pass a law that lets prison guards torture the prisoners, under the stipulation that torture not be used for punishment, but only for the guard's amusement!
That'd be Constitutional, right Scalia?
Or hey, why not just legalize prison rape? That's not about punishment, after all, but dominance. Perfectly Constitutional!
I must have bought the wrong one then. It was the only Steelcase model they had on the showroom floor, and sadly my limited time sitting in it there didn't reveal the flaw. :(
You guys need to get your story straight. It was, actually, a preference. McCain implied he felt that Iraq was just like Japan and Germany, countries that we've "occupied" (in his terms) for more than half a decade. The sheer ridiculousness of either implying either country is "occupied" (we have troops stationed in each, but not in an occupying sense), or that Iraq is anything like those two is what makes McCain's comments all the more ridiculous.
The thing that got me it was the way in which he dodged spirit of the question by answering it literally. He was asked when he felt the troops would come home, but the real question, the thing Americans care about, is when will our troops not be fighting and dying in Iraq. Sure the question asker and a lot of Americans assume this means the troops would come home, and that's not necessarily true. If "I'm being shipped out to Iraq" meant as much as "I'm being shipped out to Japan", then Americans wouldn't be so concerned. So McCain ignored the real question in order to answer the trivial one, first by implicitly assuming that Iraq is going to transform into post-war Japan, and then saying our troops would be there for a long time, and would that really be so bad?
No it wouldn't, but now tell me, wiseguy, when exactly is this magical transformation going to happen? When is the fighting and dying going to end, such that our troops being in Iraq is no bigger a deal than our troops being in Japan? Was it not obvious enough that this is what we really want to know?
Not that I'm surprised and thus particularly offended by a politician running for office dodging a question. It's that he couldn't dodge the question in a way that at least acknowledged the question that was being asked. And that bodes badly for him. Most Americans now think the war was a bad idea in the first place, they think we should pull our troops out if not immediately then at least soon, and they also don't think that America can actually "win" over there, whatever that means. In other words, we're worried that as long as our troops are there they are going to be fighting and dying for a lost cause. They aren't even considering the idea that Iraq is going to transform into Iowa like the idiot neocons thought and like McCain's answer seemed to assume. So it's not just the silly comparison between Japan/Germany and Iraq. It's completely missing the core issue that many voters have.
Sad, too. McCain was such a strong critic of the President and his war policies. If he had ran as an Independent in 2004, I'd have voted for him, or as a Republican in 2000. 2008? No damn way.
I think what I have is the Leap, and I have to say that while I think it's a very well built chair that could be comfortable, I made a mistake buying it. Basically, it's not made for shorties like me. Even at its minimum height, the lumbar support is jabbing into the middle of my back. But outside of that it's so adjustable and built with good contours so I think it would be fine.
:)
I'm hoping to pawn it off on a friend and go out and buy an Aeron.
I still think Obama's going to flame out
Oh great. First, he's a scary Muslim. Now he's a pervy homosexual!
When will this FUD end?!
Glad I'm not some retard like you.
So ignorance is bliss? I never knew if that was true or not. But I guess if you're happy that proves it.
Let me quote from upthread: Not irrational at all. Kosovo and Iraq both involved a rejection of diplomatic options that were far from exhausted, in order to launch a military attack that had gruesome consequences for civilian populations.
Superficial similarities that deliberately gloss over the realities of the situations, just as a starter the fact that in one case hostilities were already in progress before we interfered. Yes it's a valid point of comparison for the folly of aggressive foreign policies. You'd have to be a complete, utter, and most offensively a deliberate idiot to think that makes them the same.
Too bad I'm registered as an independent, that just shoots a hole in the "partisan" theory. All the parties and all their politicians suck, just for different reasons.
And of course if you're an idiot, "all their politicians suck" becomes "all their politicians suck equally much". This must be the same black/white nuance-aka-reality-doesn't-matter stupidity that makes you think Kosovo and Iraq are in any way equal. And despite being independent, you still see everything black and white enough that anyone who disagrees with your retarded assessment must themselves be a partisan. Go show.
There is no justification for that level of ignorance of reality staring you in the face. Not all bad things are equally bad. Not all failures of diplomacy are equally disastrous. Not all hot things are equally hot. Some will merely scald you, others will burn your flesh to the bone.
Get it?
I don't know, how do you feel every day when you wake up?
Seriously, no rational comparison between the two puts them equal. None. You tried the partisan angle, and it is a failure. I think that just reveals your own reasoning on the issue though.
I fucking hate Bill Clinton and all of his military adventures. Also, equating Kosovo with Iraq is fucking retarded. This is plain as day, so have a nice one.
On tech issues, he's entirely wrong? ... Do the people on slashdot who support him actually read his "Issues" section on his web site, or do they just stop at "Yes we can."
Yes we can read his website, and for my money he's right on more issues than he is wrong on, and most importantly he's right on the issues that are actually up in the air. He's for net neutrality and against telcom immunity, while McCain is the opposite. He's for IP protection, and McCain... is against? Yeah right.
Intellectual Property isn't going away any time soon. Sorry, it sucks I know, but it's true. However, the fundamental nature of the internet may be going away, and winning that fight is more important.
Go ahead and disagree with his stance on some particular issues; I know I do. But "entirely wrong" is wrong, excepting of course the possibility that I would think you are wrong on many tech issues.
Maybe because /. makes the DailyKos look moderate at times?
Look, for the last time, the fantasies you have while masturbating after dropping acid do not count as "at times".
I don't think McCain is Bush Jr.
No, he's clearly Bush Sr..
*ba-dum-pish!*
Thank you! Tip your waitress.
Haha, okay man. Indulge your fantasies of masculine superiority all you like.
Aren't there advantages both ways?
For example: Men probably have more upper body strength, and more muscle period because of testosterone. Women have a lower center of gravity, and an easy target (balls) with which to completely disable the man.
Yeah, there are advantages that go both ways. I couldn't say they necessarily balance out. The lower center of gravity is very helpful, yes. Also in a lot of cases being smaller is an advantage because it means you are faster. In some styles where speed is emphasized, the men would do anything they could to avoid building muscle -mass-, just tone, because they didn't want to be heavier and thus slower.
In the end I think the statistical observation is true that men have the advantage. For specific but not necessarily extreme examples, those advantages may mean nothing or less than nothing.
Look, when you're talking about the "average" woman and the "average" man, of course the observation that the average woman isn't as strong as the average man is true. The "average" man could beat up the "average" woman, yeah, especially since the "average" woman has no training. Big surprise there.
:P
But you can't apply the average to any particular example, and it's not nearly as automatically lopsided as you contend. You're claiming that unless the woman is extremely skilled, and the man has never so much as play-wrestled in their life, the woman loses. That's just wrong. The physics is not a powerful as you think, and sometimes works in the opposite direction. This notion that a simple clothesline is going to drop a woman who is in shape and not themselves inept is nonsense.
(if she's >140-150lbs, atleast from my experience with guys I know who weigh 130-140 and even they workout, it's simply too little mass to contend with a much larger opponent unless you know how to fight)
See, the whole point of discussion is people who know how to fight. When I was a 120lb wrestler I could beat 190lbers who also "knew how to fight", I was just better than them. They weren't inept, but their mass was simply not so great an advantage that it couldn't be overcome. Leverage works wonders, you know?
And as I just said, I saw an ~130 lb woman drop a 250lb man who knew how to fight. Yes, she had to know how to fight herself, but she wasn't the greatest fighter ever, I saw her get schooled by very skilled men closer to her size. In this case, though, the man had some serious physics working against them -- namely that big objects move more slowly.
As to 'the girls I beat up on' they asked me to spar with them every time
I was just saying that you kicked their butts, and that they sucked. I assumed this was a consensual sparring match, thus my mock Onion headline about them thinking they are tougher than they are?
They never learned how to deal with a larger attacker. It's not that it's impossible or even really that hard, it's that they didn't know what to do in that case but were nevertheless overconfident.
What I'm trying to say is, for the most part in a man vs woman situation, barring weapons and such, the woman loses almost every time unless she has top notch training (or a surprise disabling move to one of the only 3 weak spots that really count) and he is completely inept.
You keep saying there are only 3 weak spots that matter. Someone should introduce you to the knees and elbows. The best thing about them is that unlike the 3 you list, these aren't very well defended (by either innate reflex or intention) and are relatively large targets since you don't need to be precise. Not to mention that while even the worst kick to the nads is a temporary setback, kick the side of somebody's knee with the meager force required and they aren't going to be chasing you until they get out of their cast. But this is straying off topic (though it might be worth mentioning at a self defense class).
My point is, your extrapolation from the statistical averages and a few overconfident women that the woman loses unless she is top notch and the man is inept is simply wrong. A top-notch trained woman could be most men, especially those who think their size gives them an insurmountable advantage. However for a top-notch man vs a top-notch woman, then any difference in mass and strength could be telling, but even then not automatically. It's just not that simple.
And venturing back to the actual subject of the article and the OP, any female character in AoC can be assumed to have been trained in combat well enough that inherent gender differences should have no appreciable effect (and any other way of designing the game is silly).