That's the most fun way to get resources, and by far my favorite way to get iron (since iron is relatively common and appears from the waterline down). But for diamonds, I haven't found spelunking to be a reliable source. Not enough of the caves are in the diamond sweet spot. The occasional diamond vein is a nice bonus on top everything else I get, but for serious diamond/redstone mining branch mining is the fastest way.
Granted, spelunking is more fun, so I do more of that than mining.:)
While 'bitching' may not help, someone is fully in their right to do so.
And everyone else is fully in their right to tell them to post something constructive or be quiet, and are right-as-in-correct to do so.
It really isn't. They have their own opinion, and their insults are just as valid as anyone's pointless praising.
When did "pointless praising" enter the picture other than when you dragged it in by talking about "positive criticism" which apparently means "praise" even though praise is not criticism?
The discussion was about "people who aren't completely satisfied", and the different ways to express that lack of satisfaction: Pointless bitching, vs constructive criticism. Unconstructive criticism is bad, constructive criticism is good.
It really isn't. They have their own opinion, and their insults are just as valid as anyone's pointless praising.
Yes, it really is. Unconstructive criticism is unconstructive and useless and it's perfectly valid to say so. Comparing it to something else that is useless doesn't change anything.
But as long as we must talk about pointless praise, I'd say that simply by virtue of raising up instead of tearing down, praise is better even if still not productive. If you still want to tell someone engaging in such that they should refrain, and instead post something that actually contributes, be my guest. That's a reasonable stance to take. Pointless praise is pointless, ergo pointless bitching should be tolerated is not a reasonable stance, it's wrong.
I'd say that the actually mining portion of Minecraft counts as grinding. I've made giant branch mines where I dig in a pattern to uncover as many blocks as possible and find valuable minerals. It's a mostly repetitive and boring business, though occasionally stumbling on a diamond vein hits the same "pull the lever a random number of times, get a peanut" reinforcement that slot machines and MMOs use. Also occasionally stumbling across a cave network gives the chance to give up the grind and go exploring (also with the potential for finding valuable minerals, or a nasty death) which breaks things up.
Outside of mining, I'd definitely agree that building (including excavating) isn't a grind, it's what the game's about -- creativity.
Re:What about NEW stuff?
on
Tron: Legacy
·
· Score: 1
So, nothing really "new" new in the same sense as Light Cycles and Recognizers were new, but also not completely restricted to rehashes of the exact same things. Well that's a step better than what it had appeared.
People who play the game, perhaps? If his code is of poor quality, is bug ridden, and is terribly inefficient, then I would say that it is important. Not only that, but it might also make it harder for him and anyone else to maintain it.
That'd be me, and while he's no John Carmack or Michael Abrash, he's a solid enough programmer that I'm going to call it a "don't care". Compared to any closed Betas I've participated in, and certainly strictly in-house code bases, it's not bad at all.
Granted I'm solely talking about the single player experience. I don't play multiplayer, as two of the things I'm most interested in (minecarts and logic circuits to control them) haven't been implemented properly in MP yet.
Negative criticism is just as valid as positive criticism. Perhaps even more so. It helps people grow (if they agree with it, that is).
The terms you're looking for are constructive and unconstructive criticism. Constructive criticism helps people grow, and one of the most important aspects is that it is termed in a way that even if they don't agree, they may at least consider it. Unconstructive criticism is just pointless bitching and won't help anyone because nobody is going to listen to someone shrieking about how you're the worst programmer ever.
Telling people who weren't completely satisfied to get out isn't really a valid argument.
Telling people who can't engage in constructive criticism to shut up until they can is a valid argument.
Kind of a cheat, really, it'd be interesting to know if you could do the same using just the physics.
There are videos on Youtube from prior to the addition of Redstone (the stuff what lets you make NOR gates), that show adders and other logic implemented solely with the behavior of water and sand and regular torches. Unfortunately it's all single-use, and once the "circuit" runs once you have to set it all up again.
What about NEW stuff?
on
Tron: Legacy
·
· Score: 1
The new light cycles are most excellent, apparently they can switch on and off the deadly wall-trails at will. The new "recognizers" are much more believable as actual vehicles, and look really cool as well. The new virtual cityscapes look really creepy and neat - especially the Disney Castle at the intro! That was a shocker... The new "Carrier" at the end was a nice update on the old one.
The light cycles, the Recognizers, the disk game... these were all pretty original ideas. That was part of what made Tron good. It was full of things you hadn't seen before. Not just effects-wise, not just seeing a fantastical version of cyberspace, but the actual contents of that world were unique. For example part of what made Recognizers so cool and menacing was how unbelievable they were as flying vehicles. It was something obviously divorced of any notion of what could work in reality. It makes virtual worlds where the best people can come up with is highly choreographed kung-fu sound lame and uninspired.
So my question is: Not counting face-lifts of old things, what cool ideas are in this movie? Like, new ideas? Is there any new game on the Game Grid? Any new vehicles outside? New characters or concepts?
I haven't heard of anything yet. Maybe it's just avoiding spoilers, but I'm not sure that even makes sense. It'd be disappointing if the writers, and thus by extension Flynn and all the programs he wrote, hadn't had an original idea in all the intervening years. The original games came from somewhere. Am I really to understand that it was the MCP who had all these cool ideas, and I should mourn its passing?
And if you're trying to get a contract as a black hat hacker, spiky hair, tatoos, and piercings are pretty much necessary, despite the fact that at no point will the client actually see you.
Unless you're trying the reformed-black-hat security consultant thing. Then they'll see you, and without the look they'd never believe you when you look around their server room and say (without actually looking at how the systems are actually set up) "Oh man, you're lucky you called me. I could have broken in here in twenty minutes and robbed everything back in the day."
Seriously, how the fuck do you not know if you've seen Star Wars?
When the emotional part of your brain that wants to act like you never saw The Phantom Menace, and the logical part of your brain that says you did, decide on a philosophical compromise of not being sure if you've actually seen any Star Wars movies at all. Does Star Wars even exist? Or was it just a dream? Who can say?
Then you get a movie like inception and the fight scene in the hotel corridor with longer cuts and it blows you away emotionally. I think they are getting away from the hyper cutting.
At the very least Christopher Nolan is moving away from it, which is great. I really liked both Batman movies, but both of them suffered horribly from shakey-cam hyper-cutting on the fight scenes. Maybe the Batsuit was hard to move in and that was the way they compensated, I don't know, but the result was basically watching a blur which vaguely suggested the concept of Batman punching someone.
That steady, lingering camera in the Inception hallway fight was great, and the result is one of the best action sequences in recent memory.
If you're talking about the event I think you are, the version I recall was that the sub wasn't in contact and thus didn't have orders when they were being depth-charged. The Russian protocol required the top 3 officers (including the political officer) to unanimously agree to launch, and it was the First Mate (or whatever the Russian navy called them) who disagreed and convinced them to surface and communicate with Moscow, preventing the war. Oh hey I found him: Vasili Arkhipov.
Anyway, you're right, and in this kind of posturing game fuck-ups can and will happen, and can have disastrous consequences.
I think it's important to remember the difference though between someone not always taking the optimally rational action, and them being completely bonkers with completely unpredictable behavior and no rational motive. All the "Kim is just crazy, he might do anything, MAD be damned!" people are forgetting this.
Did you know that fully 100% of all animals that have ever died, was not dying prior to that? It's true! Even the healthiest of persons will eventually succumb to the accumulated effects of Not Dying.
Awwww come ON! I could really use an Elixir of Eternal Youth! Don't give me nuances, give me my elixir!:)
Not going to happen.
Elixir of Eternal Youth is a non-trademarkable phrase. It's also too wordy and old-timey sounding. Who says "Elixir" any more except RPG nerds? Plus it could be interpreted as making a specific claim of "eternal youth", opening the company up to a lawsuit in 50 years if it turns out to only be "significantly longer youth".
Naw, they'll have something punchy, not actually English, but implying what they'd never actually promise. Infini-life, or ForevaYung, or something like that. I don't know, I'm not a marketer.
The way the submitted stories seem to overwhelmingly favor paywalls, and when I see that a thoughtful person usually finds and posts a relevant link with no such restrictions, I can't help but wonder if Slashdot has some kind of "kickback" arrangement with several paywall sites.
I love how this theory popped up in a story where the opposite happened: The submitted story's link is to a free news article, while a thoughtful user provided the paywall-blocked original paper./. stories usually, though not always, mention when a link is behind a paywall or even a free-registration-wall. And I've noticed no bias towards paywall blocked sites./.ers don't RTFA to begin with, how much are they expecting to make off people going to the paywall-protected site then signing up for a subscription (which in the hypothetical kickback situation would surely be the requirement for earning the kickback)?
But hey, maybe it's true, I don't know. I just think it's funny that you didn't bring it up in a story that's the opposite.
I think he cares about what happens to his son, and I think he and his son care about maintaining power for the Kim family, and that their sole source of power is call the People's Republic of North Korea. I also think his son is more responsible for these actions than his father, as a way to win favor with the military which will be necessary for him to be an effective ruler.
Yes, "suicide by cop" is where you provoke a cop into shooting you. Usually by making it seem like you're about to shoot them, and not giving them time to realize that you aren't.
Whereas NK's actions have been carefully calculated to push the boundaries, yet not actually provoke a military response.
It would be trivial for NK to provoke a shooting war, and with their state-run media still blame it on our aggression and "save face". They avoid doing so. Instead, they do just enough to remain a credible threat and bring the other parties to the negotiating table and win concessions.
Their behavior matches that of someone who is interested in maintaining power, and acquiring as much more as they can. It does not in any way match the behavior of someone trying to commit suicide.
The only change they are interested in is the transition from Kim's rule to his son's. Part of that transition is going to be Kim the younger establishing himself with the military. Taking an aggressive stance -- but not so aggressive that we actually attack and destroy his power base -- helps with that, and is completely consistent with what is happening.
As if admitting the big lie, or their inability to do so, has anything to do with it. They want to keep the big lie running for another generation at least.
I'm not at all sure that ol' Kimmy is at all motivated by the welfare of his subjects.
I am sure that ol' Kimmy is motivated by his desire for power, and that his subjects are the source of his power. If North Korea gets bombed, then Kim has no more power, even if he survives. He (nor his son) will sacrifice the country they rule for nothing in a preemptive strike.
However, were we to invade North Korea with conventional forces, which would surely mean that Kim would lose control of his country and thus source of power, then you should be worried about him using his nukes. At that point he would have nothing to lose, and everything to gain if it somehow convinces us to stop. Or, much more likely, that the simple threat that this is what would happen will prevent the invasion in the first place.
MAD works with North Korea. However, as always it works both ways. Even if it the Assured Destruction applies to our allies in Seoul, not the U.S.
That's not how sig figs work when adding and subtracting. The correct answer has one significant digit after the decimal, because that's how many the original measurement had.
Don't forget wrastlin' [syfy.com]! Definitely science fiction at its best.
It could be! Think about it, if they decided to start making Smackdown seem more at home on the channel normally known as SciFi:
Interviewer: standing next to a big muscle-bound man wearing cybernetic shoulderpads and with circuit board face paint]: So, Planetcrusher, tell me what's going to happen on this Sunday's Galactic Smackdown?
Planetcrusher: [gravely, earnest-and-out-of-breath wrestling smack-talk voice]: I, Planetcrusher, intend to step into the wormhole to the Delta Quadrant, and find the lost technology of the Ashkari, and when I do, I will activate their Body Revivification Engine, and infused with its power, I will return, and step into the ring as a God, and when that happens, the Replicator Rampage Rally, who could not stand up to my mortal form before, will find themselves crushed in midst of the black hole that I will open, ripping them to shreds, trapping them at the boundary of the event horizon, where time will cease to have meaning, and they will know only sorrow and darkness for eternity! [gasp pant]
Interviewer: Well good luck with that! Should be exciting, folks. Replicator Rampage Rally says they have a new Plasma Suplex that they think will let them defeat Planetcrusher, but I don't know if they counted on this!
Which includes, of course, some of the capital cost of the equipment used to receive the coal -- the wear-and-tear on that equipment does contribute to the length of its useful life.
Yes but the up-front cost of the equipment would not be attributed as part of the incremental cost of getting the coal. Neither by the coal mining company, who would call that the fixed capital cost and any ongoing costs the operating costs (which is also distinct from depreciation). Nor would the purchaser, where the cost of coal would not be (coal companies fixed costs + operating costs for acquiring a unit of coal)/(total units of fuel acquired up to that point).
The incremental cost of getting additional coal is different than the fixed costs of setting up the operation.
I think we're mostly talking about the difference between fixed and variable costs.
Indeed. And fuel cost is a variable, or operating, cost. If coal fell from the sky, you wouldn't call the funnel you built to get the coal into your a "fuel cost". You'd pick a given size of funnel to get a desired amount of coal from the sky, and that'd be a fixed cost. Because it would be fixed.
Sure it is, at the analytical level. Accounting feeds into the analytics.
The amortized cost over the expected lifespan would be considered, because it's important, but it would not be catagorized as an operating or fuel cost. And you wouldn't start doing this just because otherwise the fuel costs would be close to zero.
With solar power, the fuel is (very close to) free.
The claim that efficiency is meaningless because the fuel is free just doesn't stand up -- the fixed costs are very important.
Fuck yes, absolutely true. The OP's point was stupid. Of course efficiency is still important. If your heat engine is half as efficient as it could be, then you're going to need twice the collected solar energy to produce the same amount of power. Gee, how could having to build a collector that is twice as large affect costs?!
Like I said, all your comments about the relevant costs are correct. You just don't need to incorrectly call fixed up-front costs a "fuel cost" to make that point. It didn't help them understand the point anyway!:)
Slashdot Mirror
That's the most fun way to get resources, and by far my favorite way to get iron (since iron is relatively common and appears from the waterline down). But for diamonds, I haven't found spelunking to be a reliable source. Not enough of the caves are in the diamond sweet spot. The occasional diamond vein is a nice bonus on top everything else I get, but for serious diamond/redstone mining branch mining is the fastest way.
Granted, spelunking is more fun, so I do more of that than mining. :)
While 'bitching' may not help, someone is fully in their right to do so.
And everyone else is fully in their right to tell them to post something constructive or be quiet, and are right-as-in-correct to do so.
It really isn't. They have their own opinion, and their insults are just as valid as anyone's pointless praising.
When did "pointless praising" enter the picture other than when you dragged it in by talking about "positive criticism" which apparently means "praise" even though praise is not criticism?
The discussion was about "people who aren't completely satisfied", and the different ways to express that lack of satisfaction: Pointless bitching, vs constructive criticism. Unconstructive criticism is bad, constructive criticism is good.
It really isn't. They have their own opinion, and their insults are just as valid as anyone's pointless praising.
Yes, it really is. Unconstructive criticism is unconstructive and useless and it's perfectly valid to say so. Comparing it to something else that is useless doesn't change anything.
But as long as we must talk about pointless praise, I'd say that simply by virtue of raising up instead of tearing down, praise is better even if still not productive. If you still want to tell someone engaging in such that they should refrain, and instead post something that actually contributes, be my guest. That's a reasonable stance to take. Pointless praise is pointless, ergo pointless bitching should be tolerated is not a reasonable stance, it's wrong.
Yes! They should have that on SyFy.
Sure beats a self-knitted sweater, formed for a mutant, with asymmetric arm lengths, a hunchback and a hole in the stomach area for the tentacle.
And yes, I speak from experience.
Damn. There are gifts that say "I wish you'd been a boy/girl", and then there's this.
I'd say that the actually mining portion of Minecraft counts as grinding. I've made giant branch mines where I dig in a pattern to uncover as many blocks as possible and find valuable minerals. It's a mostly repetitive and boring business, though occasionally stumbling on a diamond vein hits the same "pull the lever a random number of times, get a peanut" reinforcement that slot machines and MMOs use. Also occasionally stumbling across a cave network gives the chance to give up the grind and go exploring (also with the potential for finding valuable minerals, or a nasty death) which breaks things up.
Outside of mining, I'd definitely agree that building (including excavating) isn't a grind, it's what the game's about -- creativity.
So, nothing really "new" new in the same sense as Light Cycles and Recognizers were new, but also not completely restricted to rehashes of the exact same things. Well that's a step better than what it had appeared.
People who play the game, perhaps? If his code is of poor quality, is bug ridden, and is terribly inefficient, then I would say that it is important. Not only that, but it might also make it harder for him and anyone else to maintain it.
That'd be me, and while he's no John Carmack or Michael Abrash, he's a solid enough programmer that I'm going to call it a "don't care". Compared to any closed Betas I've participated in, and certainly strictly in-house code bases, it's not bad at all.
Granted I'm solely talking about the single player experience. I don't play multiplayer, as two of the things I'm most interested in (minecarts and logic circuits to control them) haven't been implemented properly in MP yet.
Negative criticism is just as valid as positive criticism. Perhaps even more so. It helps people grow (if they agree with it, that is).
The terms you're looking for are constructive and unconstructive criticism. Constructive criticism helps people grow, and one of the most important aspects is that it is termed in a way that even if they don't agree, they may at least consider it. Unconstructive criticism is just pointless bitching and won't help anyone because nobody is going to listen to someone shrieking about how you're the worst programmer ever.
Telling people who weren't completely satisfied to get out isn't really a valid argument.
Telling people who can't engage in constructive criticism to shut up until they can is a valid argument.
It has in-game NOR gates.
I love short proofs. :)
Kind of a cheat, really, it'd be interesting to know if you could do the same using just the physics.
There are videos on Youtube from prior to the addition of Redstone (the stuff what lets you make NOR gates), that show adders and other logic implemented solely with the behavior of water and sand and regular torches. Unfortunately it's all single-use, and once the "circuit" runs once you have to set it all up again.
The new light cycles are most excellent, apparently they can switch on and off the deadly wall-trails at will. The new "recognizers" are much more believable as actual vehicles, and look really cool as well. The new virtual cityscapes look really creepy and neat - especially the Disney Castle at the intro! That was a shocker... The new "Carrier" at the end was a nice update on the old one.
The light cycles, the Recognizers, the disk game... these were all pretty original ideas. That was part of what made Tron good. It was full of things you hadn't seen before. Not just effects-wise, not just seeing a fantastical version of cyberspace, but the actual contents of that world were unique. For example part of what made Recognizers so cool and menacing was how unbelievable they were as flying vehicles. It was something obviously divorced of any notion of what could work in reality. It makes virtual worlds where the best people can come up with is highly choreographed kung-fu sound lame and uninspired.
So my question is: Not counting face-lifts of old things, what cool ideas are in this movie? Like, new ideas? Is there any new game on the Game Grid? Any new vehicles outside? New characters or concepts?
I haven't heard of anything yet. Maybe it's just avoiding spoilers, but I'm not sure that even makes sense. It'd be disappointing if the writers, and thus by extension Flynn and all the programs he wrote, hadn't had an original idea in all the intervening years. The original games came from somewhere. Am I really to understand that it was the MCP who had all these cool ideas, and I should mourn its passing?
You stopped reading his post a little bit
How do you only stop reading a post a "little bit". That doesn't make any sense, you buffoon!
And if you're trying to get a contract as a black hat hacker, spiky hair, tatoos, and piercings are pretty much necessary, despite the fact that at no point will the client actually see you.
Unless you're trying the reformed-black-hat security consultant thing. Then they'll see you, and without the look they'd never believe you when you look around their server room and say (without actually looking at how the systems are actually set up) "Oh man, you're lucky you called me. I could have broken in here in twenty minutes and robbed everything back in the day."
Seriously, how the fuck do you not know if you've seen Star Wars?
When the emotional part of your brain that wants to act like you never saw The Phantom Menace, and the logical part of your brain that says you did, decide on a philosophical compromise of not being sure if you've actually seen any Star Wars movies at all. Does Star Wars even exist? Or was it just a dream? Who can say?
Not sure that applies to her case, though.
Then you get a movie like inception and the fight scene in the hotel corridor with longer cuts and it blows you away emotionally. I think they are getting away from the hyper cutting.
At the very least Christopher Nolan is moving away from it, which is great. I really liked both Batman movies, but both of them suffered horribly from shakey-cam hyper-cutting on the fight scenes. Maybe the Batsuit was hard to move in and that was the way they compensated, I don't know, but the result was basically watching a blur which vaguely suggested the concept of Batman punching someone.
That steady, lingering camera in the Inception hallway fight was great, and the result is one of the best action sequences in recent memory.
If you're talking about the event I think you are, the version I recall was that the sub wasn't in contact and thus didn't have orders when they were being depth-charged. The Russian protocol required the top 3 officers (including the political officer) to unanimously agree to launch, and it was the First Mate (or whatever the Russian navy called them) who disagreed and convinced them to surface and communicate with Moscow, preventing the war. Oh hey I found him: Vasili Arkhipov.
Anyway, you're right, and in this kind of posturing game fuck-ups can and will happen, and can have disastrous consequences.
I think it's important to remember the difference though between someone not always taking the optimally rational action, and them being completely bonkers with completely unpredictable behavior and no rational motive. All the "Kim is just crazy, he might do anything, MAD be damned!" people are forgetting this.
I would certainly hope that chart is missing all non-mammals.
But Not Dying is a major cause of death!
Did you know that fully 100% of all animals that have ever died, was not dying prior to that? It's true! Even the healthiest of persons will eventually succumb to the accumulated effects of Not Dying.
Awwww come ON! I could really use an Elixir of Eternal Youth! Don't give me nuances, give me my elixir! :)
Not going to happen.
Elixir of Eternal Youth is a non-trademarkable phrase. It's also too wordy and old-timey sounding. Who says "Elixir" any more except RPG nerds? Plus it could be interpreted as making a specific claim of "eternal youth", opening the company up to a lawsuit in 50 years if it turns out to only be "significantly longer youth".
Naw, they'll have something punchy, not actually English, but implying what they'd never actually promise. Infini-life, or ForevaYung, or something like that. I don't know, I'm not a marketer.
Oh, and it'd be better if it was a pill. :)
The way the submitted stories seem to overwhelmingly favor paywalls, and when I see that a thoughtful person usually finds and posts a relevant link with no such restrictions, I can't help but wonder if Slashdot has some kind of "kickback" arrangement with several paywall sites.
I love how this theory popped up in a story where the opposite happened: The submitted story's link is to a free news article, while a thoughtful user provided the paywall-blocked original paper. /. stories usually, though not always, mention when a link is behind a paywall or even a free-registration-wall. And I've noticed no bias towards paywall blocked sites. /.ers don't RTFA to begin with, how much are they expecting to make off people going to the paywall-protected site then signing up for a subscription (which in the hypothetical kickback situation would surely be the requirement for earning the kickback)?
But hey, maybe it's true, I don't know. I just think it's funny that you didn't bring it up in a story that's the opposite.
I think he cares about what happens to his son, and I think he and his son care about maintaining power for the Kim family, and that their sole source of power is call the People's Republic of North Korea. I also think his son is more responsible for these actions than his father, as a way to win favor with the military which will be necessary for him to be an effective ruler.
Yes, "suicide by cop" is where you provoke a cop into shooting you. Usually by making it seem like you're about to shoot them, and not giving them time to realize that you aren't.
Whereas NK's actions have been carefully calculated to push the boundaries, yet not actually provoke a military response.
It would be trivial for NK to provoke a shooting war, and with their state-run media still blame it on our aggression and "save face". They avoid doing so. Instead, they do just enough to remain a credible threat and bring the other parties to the negotiating table and win concessions.
Their behavior matches that of someone who is interested in maintaining power, and acquiring as much more as they can. It does not in any way match the behavior of someone trying to commit suicide.
The only change they are interested in is the transition from Kim's rule to his son's. Part of that transition is going to be Kim the younger establishing himself with the military. Taking an aggressive stance -- but not so aggressive that we actually attack and destroy his power base -- helps with that, and is completely consistent with what is happening.
As if admitting the big lie, or their inability to do so, has anything to do with it. They want to keep the big lie running for another generation at least.
So yeah, I'm quite sure they aren't suicidal.
genuine WMDs
And now you know why we attacked Iraq and not North Korea.
Even before NK had nukes, they had (and still have) enough artillery in the DMZ to turn Seoul into rubble before we could conceivably prevent it.
As soon as the "Axis of Evil" was described, I knew which country was going to be invaded: The one that was the least credible threat.
I'm not at all sure that ol' Kimmy is at all motivated by the welfare of his subjects.
I am sure that ol' Kimmy is motivated by his desire for power, and that his subjects are the source of his power. If North Korea gets bombed, then Kim has no more power, even if he survives. He (nor his son) will sacrifice the country they rule for nothing in a preemptive strike.
However, were we to invade North Korea with conventional forces, which would surely mean that Kim would lose control of his country and thus source of power, then you should be worried about him using his nukes. At that point he would have nothing to lose, and everything to gain if it somehow convinces us to stop. Or, much more likely, that the simple threat that this is what would happen will prevent the invasion in the first place.
MAD works with North Korea. However, as always it works both ways. Even if it the Assured Destruction applies to our allies in Seoul, not the U.S.
That's not how sig figs work when adding and subtracting. The correct answer has one significant digit after the decimal, because that's how many the original measurement had.
Don't forget wrastlin' [syfy.com]! Definitely science fiction at its best.
It could be! Think about it, if they decided to start making Smackdown seem more at home on the channel normally known as SciFi:
Interviewer: standing next to a big muscle-bound man wearing cybernetic shoulderpads and with circuit board face paint]: So, Planetcrusher, tell me what's going to happen on this Sunday's Galactic Smackdown?
Planetcrusher: [gravely, earnest-and-out-of-breath wrestling smack-talk voice]: I, Planetcrusher, intend to step into the wormhole to the Delta Quadrant, and find the lost technology of the Ashkari, and when I do, I will activate their Body Revivification Engine, and infused with its power, I will return, and step into the ring as a God, and when that happens, the Replicator Rampage Rally, who could not stand up to my mortal form before, will find themselves crushed in midst of the black hole that I will open, ripping them to shreds, trapping them at the boundary of the event horizon, where time will cease to have meaning, and they will know only sorrow and darkness for eternity! [gasp pant]
Interviewer: Well good luck with that! Should be exciting, folks. Replicator Rampage Rally says they have a new Plasma Suplex that they think will let them defeat Planetcrusher, but I don't know if they counted on this!
Which includes, of course, some of the capital cost of the equipment used to receive the coal -- the wear-and-tear on that equipment does contribute to the length of its useful life.
Yes but the up-front cost of the equipment would not be attributed as part of the incremental cost of getting the coal. Neither by the coal mining company, who would call that the fixed capital cost and any ongoing costs the operating costs (which is also distinct from depreciation). Nor would the purchaser, where the cost of coal would not be (coal companies fixed costs + operating costs for acquiring a unit of coal)/(total units of fuel acquired up to that point).
The incremental cost of getting additional coal is different than the fixed costs of setting up the operation.
I think we're mostly talking about the difference between fixed and variable costs.
Indeed. And fuel cost is a variable, or operating, cost. If coal fell from the sky, you wouldn't call the funnel you built to get the coal into your a "fuel cost". You'd pick a given size of funnel to get a desired amount of coal from the sky, and that'd be a fixed cost. Because it would be fixed.
Sure it is, at the analytical level. Accounting feeds into the analytics.
The amortized cost over the expected lifespan would be considered, because it's important, but it would not be catagorized as an operating or fuel cost. And you wouldn't start doing this just because otherwise the fuel costs would be close to zero.
With solar power, the fuel is (very close to) free.
The claim that efficiency is meaningless because the fuel is free just doesn't stand up -- the fixed costs are very important.
Fuck yes, absolutely true. The OP's point was stupid. Of course efficiency is still important. If your heat engine is half as efficient as it could be, then you're going to need twice the collected solar energy to produce the same amount of power. Gee, how could having to build a collector that is twice as large affect costs?!
Like I said, all your comments about the relevant costs are correct. You just don't need to incorrectly call fixed up-front costs a "fuel cost" to make that point. It didn't help them understand the point anyway! :)