Yeah but if you got all your news from blogs like I do, you would be as well informed as you are now, and for free!!!!;)
The objective of a blog is to allow the author to argue his political ideology. That is it. Blogs aren't news sites. They're news filters. They scour the hundreds of articles a week and pick out the ones that either support their views, or strawmen they can easily vanquish. If you jsut read blogs, you are censoring yourself to a multitude of (opposing) viewpoints.
The irony in all this is that blogs do not hesitate to point out the 'biases' in mainstream news media, while they themsevles are ridiculously biased.
That 'dope' os 'sheeple' who only watches CNN is in a much better position to engage in political commentary than the 'enlightened' liberal who only reads DU or kos.
That's not to say blogs are worthless. Bias isn't necessarily bad, and more importantly it's unavoidable. Every mainstream news outlet has been accused of bias, from both side of the spectrum. So if you really want both sides of the story, don't look for bias, look for balance. Do what I do: Hit up mainstream news media, then hit up far-right blogs (LGF, powerline, National Review) then hit up far-left blogs (Kos, DU, indymedia).
Then you'll truly be informed. The only problem is most people don't like getting 2 opposing views because it's too hard to reconcile them (I'm experiencing this now with the Social Security debate). But that's the whole point of commentary to begin with.
Here's a frank appraisal of each series (minus TOS), and a ranking:
TNG - This seemed to be everyone's favorite, likely because it was the first, and Picard was bloody brilliant. Hands down the best character. The show would have been unbearable otherwise. Riker had his moments, and a few Data episodes were okay, but on the whole an episode without enough Picard was a bad episode. 8/10
DS9 - I as skeptical of this series, but it became to be a truly amazing show. Overall the characters were better than those on DS9 (although no one will ever top Picard); particularly Odo, Garick, Martak, Goyron, and Weyoun. I didn't find myself cringing at any of the characters, save some completly bizarre Ferengi episodes. Massively long continual story arcs kept you intrigued throughout the entire series. Overall the plots were just better than TNG. 10/10
Voyager - Oh God. This was the bottom of the barrel. Yes, worse than Enterprise I'm afraid. I wish I kept a running tally of how many times Janeway said "I understand that blank blank blank, BUT blank blank". Ugh. She wasn't a captain, she was a Mom. No characters were worth seeing except the holographic Doctor, and they dwindled on him too much at times even. Truly atrocious series I was glad to finish. I can recall 2-3 good episodes. 2/10
Enterprise - Probably got the worse rap out of any of the series. The stupid intro song, the prequel thing, and the idiotic cheap leg shots of T'pol put most everyone off. However it did improve as the series went on. Malcolm ("armory" office) got a little more interesting, and Trip's accent became less annoying. Archer finally started making some tough decisions (jacking an innocent ship's warp drive), but it was too little too late to really save the series from termination. The Xindi story arc was intriguing, but it took them 2 seasons to get to it. 4/10
It should be noted that Every one of these series started off very badly, even TNG and DS9. I don't know why Star Trek needs the obligatory 1 or 2 seasons to get going but that's certainly the trend. And yes, I need to get out more.
You can't find WoW in retail stores anymore. They've been sold out since after Christmas and haven't been getting shipments. What's more, they have no idea when they're getting new ones. Clerks just spit out the ol' "try again next week" with no guarantees whatsoever.
Supply and demand? WoW is going for almost double its retail cost on Ebay.
If you haven't seen the Dawn of War cutscene for Relic's new WH40K game, it's terrific. Trumps any and all that have come before it, including the best of Diablo 2 and Warcraft. Unfortuntaely I do not believe it is available for download, except on torrents of course.
1. Go to an emergency room in the states compared to th Canada. Go to your provinces "find-a-doctor" sites and see how many are taking new patients. Associations like RPAP exist for a reason.
2. It's used in Alberta. And it's not ridiculously hard to get into med school because it's hard knowing the stuff (believe me it ain't). It's all supply-demand issues. If it weren't then there'd be no such things as MD waitlists, since everyone that's on that list is qualified, but they have no room for them.
3. People who already know tons about a speciality should get first pick into a speciality and get fast tracked so they cn start practicing. I never mentioned anything about rubber stamps.
Here's the weird thing about the Canadian academic medical system.
Fact 1: Canadian doctors, especially rural family doctors, are in critical shortage.
Fact 2: It is hard as hell to get into Canadian medical schools (GPA: 3.8, MCAT 30-31 + Extracurricular)
Fact 3: There are hundreds of immigrant doctors in Canada driving taxi cabs.
If you said "WTF?" you're not alone. The reason why it's hard to get into medical school is easy enough to explain: When the government pays 70% of your tuition, you're gonna get high demand for a fairly well paying job (about $7000 USD/month).
But what makes very little sense is all these perfectly good doctors roaming the country with crappy little McJobs. The reason is because they can't get into residency programs to get certified. And they can't get into residency programs because Canadian graduates get first pick, and whatever's leftover goes to the immigrants. Since there's always never enough residency spots, and the one's that go to the immigrants are less desireable (family medicine).
That means we could have the world's best opthmalogist living in Canada, and the most he can hope for is it run a rinky-dinky clinic off in the boonies, if he's lucky.
Not sure how it relates to the story, but an interesting tidbit nonetheless.
There are a statistically higher proportion of black people that deal drugs than white people. So naturally, they get busted more often than white people. Furthermore, they are more likely to be repeat offenders, and repeat offenders get tougher sentences.
Currently FastTrack and eDonkey are the two top peer to peer networks. In almost every conceivable way, eDonkey is better than FastTrack. The reason FastTrack is popular at all is because it was the first decentralized network to pick up steam after the demise of Napster. They quickly rose to 4 million users, far above every other network.
But after decentralization, no new features were added. Instead, lots and lots and lots of spyware was bundled into the Kazaa Client by Sharman Networks inc. Kazaa Lite, the popular non-spyware altnerative, was shut down by this same company. Several DMCA notices were issued to sites hosting Kazaa Lite.
In the long run, a better client will supercede a poorer client once word of mouth gets around. And eDonkey far exceeds Kazaa with these features:
Hashing (fingerprinting, prevents fake files)
Swarming downloads
ed2k link sites (fingerprint information on specific files in the form of html code)
No spyware (for eMule)
Lots of different clients to choose from
In short, Sharman killed off their network by spending way too much time generating ad revenue, and not using that revenue to improve their client. There have been no important feature additions in years. This day has been long time coming.
I know it sounds awful, but it's true. If we don't use racial prfiling, then what we're really asking for isn't to stop targeting muslim males, but rather harass grandmothers and children. Because hey, no one wants to be biased.
People against racial profiling usually claim it's just racism. And by a narrow definition it is.
Or is it just playing statistics? Doctors usually check black men for prostate cancer because they are 100% more likely to get it than white men. Is that racism?
So if 9/10 terrorists are muslim males, doesn't it make sense that more scrutiny should be placed on them, rather than seniors with heart conditions? Security needs common sense, and if that hurts people's feelings then it's a worthy tradeoff.
In the originial doom, higher difficulty maent more monsters, which means more fun. But in Doom 3 what do the higher difficulties mean? More monsters? Doesn't seem like it. Tougher monsters? The manual says nothing, any idea?
I've clocked in about 10 h of play so far, all on single player, so that's what I'll focus on.
The game has a half-life story: Bunch of monsters spawning because of wacko-scientific experiments. Whatever. The guns are all standard, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade, rocket launcher, and of course BFG and plasma rifle; also nothing new.
Gameplay largely involves walking around identical looking factory/metal corridors. The lighting is always always dark. This is particularly frustrating since our hero is incapable of wielding both a flashlight and a weapon. Yes, that's right. The flashlight is technically a weapon, and you can't hold 2 weapons at the same time. That means you often find yourself shooting in the dark hoping you hit stuff. Highly annoying.
There is very little to figure out, all the maps are linear with no more than one-way to go. The 'secrets' in the game usually involve either looking behind a shelf for some ammo, or entering a code you found for some safe.
Because the engine is so taxing, there are very few monsters at any given time. Usually 2, at most 5. There are few open areas.
If you haven't gotten the idea, it's basically a very pretty, but utterly dull shoot 'em up. There is no secondary fire, and the weapons are unimaginative. The storyline is virtually nonexistant. After 10 levels, I still know next to nothing, except ****SPOILER*** there is some 'evil' scientist running around, and there's my marine captain trying to help us contact Earth. *** END SPOILER***.
Finding new monsters is undoubtable the 'coolest' thing, since they are so well made. But that is about the only thing that makes me come crawling back. I'd wait a bit before you consider picking this up.
What I really liked about the original doom was entering rooms that had ~30 monsters. Few games are like that these days, with the exception of Serious Sam (which was hella fun, but had the weakest storyline I've ever seen).
The trailer didn't show any of these huge scenes, but more 1 on 1 battles. Well, here's hoping.
Nobody in the history of capitalism has ever suggested capitalism is a silver, panacea, or other remarkably endearing term. It is simply the best choice out of a wide list that has been tested over centuries.
It is not about "solving" problems, since many problems have no "solution", but rather a trade-off. One such problem is how to provide food to every man, woman, and child. Capitalism doesn't solve this problem, but does a much better job at it then its predecessors.
As for civil war and racism, one of the best remedies for those social problems is trade. The countries that trade the most are also the ones most at peace. No sense biting the hand that feeds you, per se.
Yes. Because International Corporations are running rampant in China and India, causing widespread decrease in standards of living.
Or maybe not. The poorest countries in the world are those with very low per capita foreign investment (ie. Big Bad Corporations). You do the math.
Actually what you would be describing wouldn't be capitalism at all, it would be more like fascism where property rights don't exist. Capitalism is not a classic 'ism', but simply a few steps below anarchy in terms of personal freedom. You can do whatever you wish, except take another man's property without his permission; including his life or posessions.
A government that steals from its own people is not running a capitalist state in the first place.
Hunger is solved in America, and in most first world countries. When was the last time heard of anyone dying of starvation in these countries? Malnourishment is not the same thing, since it often comes from making poor personal choices.
Slashdot Mirror
Take your pick
Really helps knowing some of these when reading blogs. Some writers are notorious for using them.
The objective of a blog is to allow the author to argue his political ideology. That is it. Blogs aren't news sites. They're news filters. They scour the hundreds of articles a week and pick out the ones that either support their views, or strawmen they can easily vanquish. If you jsut read blogs, you are censoring yourself to a multitude of (opposing) viewpoints.
The irony in all this is that blogs do not hesitate to point out the 'biases' in mainstream news media, while they themsevles are ridiculously biased.
That 'dope' os 'sheeple' who only watches CNN is in a much better position to engage in political commentary than the 'enlightened' liberal who only reads DU or kos.
That's not to say blogs are worthless. Bias isn't necessarily bad, and more importantly it's unavoidable. Every mainstream news outlet has been accused of bias, from both side of the spectrum. So if you really want both sides of the story, don't look for bias, look for balance. Do what I do: Hit up mainstream news media, then hit up far-right blogs (LGF, powerline, National Review) then hit up far-left blogs (Kos, DU, indymedia).
Then you'll truly be informed. The only problem is most people don't like getting 2 opposing views because it's too hard to reconcile them (I'm experiencing this now with the Social Security debate). But that's the whole point of commentary to begin with.
haha. It's worth it for the /silly
:)
I am at level 52. Bought the game at the end of January.
Plus you can have several alts. Now, try leveling the 9 different classes to level 60.
Do you think he got more time for choosing an alias as stupid as "Gaven Stubberfield"?
Hmm. You forgot to include the defelector dish - the swiss army knife of the 24th century.
I had 4 mod points up until about 5 h ago. You would have gotten at least one of those. Man my timing sucks :/
Excellent post. Sorry teknomage had to ruin it for you with is reply.
Here's a frank appraisal of each series (minus TOS), and a ranking:
TNG - This seemed to be everyone's favorite, likely because it was the first, and Picard was bloody brilliant. Hands down the best character. The show would have been unbearable otherwise. Riker had his moments, and a few Data episodes were okay, but on the whole an episode without enough Picard was a bad episode. 8/10
DS9 - I as skeptical of this series, but it became to be a truly amazing show. Overall the characters were better than those on DS9 (although no one will ever top Picard); particularly Odo, Garick, Martak, Goyron, and Weyoun. I didn't find myself cringing at any of the characters, save some completly bizarre Ferengi episodes. Massively long continual story arcs kept you intrigued throughout the entire series. Overall the plots were just better than TNG. 10/10
Voyager - Oh God. This was the bottom of the barrel. Yes, worse than Enterprise I'm afraid. I wish I kept a running tally of how many times Janeway said "I understand that blank blank blank, BUT blank blank". Ugh. She wasn't a captain, she was a Mom. No characters were worth seeing except the holographic Doctor, and they dwindled on him too much at times even. Truly atrocious series I was glad to finish. I can recall 2-3 good episodes. 2/10
Enterprise - Probably got the worse rap out of any of the series. The stupid intro song, the prequel thing, and the idiotic cheap leg shots of T'pol put most everyone off. However it did improve as the series went on. Malcolm ("armory" office) got a little more interesting, and Trip's accent became less annoying. Archer finally started making some tough decisions (jacking an innocent ship's warp drive), but it was too little too late to really save the series from termination. The Xindi story arc was intriguing, but it took them 2 seasons to get to it. 4/10
It should be noted that Every one of these series started off very badly, even TNG and DS9. I don't know why Star Trek needs the obligatory 1 or 2 seasons to get going but that's certainly the trend. And yes, I need to get out more.
You can't find WoW in retail stores anymore. They've been sold out since after Christmas and haven't been getting shipments. What's more, they have no idea when they're getting new ones. Clerks just spit out the ol' "try again next week" with no guarantees whatsoever.
Supply and demand? WoW is going for almost double its retail cost on Ebay.
Nice to see an article that thinks outside the box into new paradigms and synergies.
If you haven't seen the Dawn of War cutscene for Relic's new WH40K game, it's terrific. Trumps any and all that have come before it, including the best of Diablo 2 and Warcraft. Unfortuntaely I do not believe it is available for download, except on torrents of course.
1. Go to an emergency room in the states compared to th Canada. Go to your provinces "find-a-doctor" sites and see how many are taking new patients. Associations like RPAP exist for a reason.
2. It's used in Alberta. And it's not ridiculously hard to get into med school because it's hard knowing the stuff (believe me it ain't). It's all supply-demand issues. If it weren't then there'd be no such things as MD waitlists, since everyone that's on that list is qualified, but they have no room for them.
3. People who already know tons about a speciality should get first pick into a speciality and get fast tracked so they cn start practicing. I never mentioned anything about rubber stamps.
Here's the weird thing about the Canadian academic medical system.
Fact 1: Canadian doctors, especially rural family doctors, are in critical shortage.
Fact 2: It is hard as hell to get into Canadian medical schools (GPA: 3.8, MCAT 30-31 + Extracurricular)
Fact 3: There are hundreds of immigrant doctors in Canada driving taxi cabs.
If you said "WTF?" you're not alone. The reason why it's hard to get into medical school is easy enough to explain: When the government pays 70% of your tuition, you're gonna get high demand for a fairly well paying job (about $7000 USD/month).
But what makes very little sense is all these perfectly good doctors roaming the country with crappy little McJobs. The reason is because they can't get into residency programs to get certified. And they can't get into residency programs because Canadian graduates get first pick, and whatever's leftover goes to the immigrants. Since there's always never enough residency spots, and the one's that go to the immigrants are less desireable (family medicine).
That means we could have the world's best opthmalogist living in Canada, and the most he can hope for is it run a rinky-dinky clinic off in the boonies, if he's lucky.
Not sure how it relates to the story, but an interesting tidbit nonetheless.
There are a statistically higher proportion of black people that deal drugs than white people. So naturally, they get busted more often than white people. Furthermore, they are more likely to be repeat offenders, and repeat offenders get tougher sentences.
Currently FastTrack and eDonkey are the two top peer to peer networks. In almost every conceivable way, eDonkey is better than FastTrack. The reason FastTrack is popular at all is because it was the first decentralized network to pick up steam after the demise of Napster. They quickly rose to 4 million users, far above every other network.
But after decentralization, no new features were added. Instead, lots and lots and lots of spyware was bundled into the Kazaa Client by Sharman Networks inc. Kazaa Lite, the popular non-spyware altnerative, was shut down by this same company. Several DMCA notices were issued to sites hosting Kazaa Lite.
In the long run, a better client will supercede a poorer client once word of mouth gets around. And eDonkey far exceeds Kazaa with these features:
Hashing (fingerprinting, prevents fake files)
Swarming downloads
ed2k link sites (fingerprint information on specific files in the form of html code)
No spyware (for eMule)
Lots of different clients to choose from
In short, Sharman killed off their network by spending way too much time generating ad revenue, and not using that revenue to improve their client. There have been no important feature additions in years. This day has been long time coming.
I know it sounds awful, but it's true. If we don't use racial prfiling, then what we're really asking for isn't to stop targeting muslim males, but rather harass grandmothers and children. Because hey, no one wants to be biased.
People against racial profiling usually claim it's just racism. And by a narrow definition it is.
Or is it just playing statistics? Doctors usually check black men for prostate cancer because they are 100% more likely to get it than white men. Is that racism?
So if 9/10 terrorists are muslim males, doesn't it make sense that more scrutiny should be placed on them, rather than seniors with heart conditions? Security needs common sense, and if that hurts people's feelings then it's a worthy tradeoff.
In the originial doom, higher difficulty maent more monsters, which means more fun. But in Doom 3 what do the higher difficulties mean? More monsters? Doesn't seem like it. Tougher monsters? The manual says nothing, any idea?
I've clocked in about 10 h of play so far, all on single player, so that's what I'll focus on.
The game has a half-life story: Bunch of monsters spawning because of wacko-scientific experiments. Whatever. The guns are all standard, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade, rocket launcher, and of course BFG and plasma rifle; also nothing new.
Gameplay largely involves walking around identical looking factory/metal corridors. The lighting is always always dark. This is particularly frustrating since our hero is incapable of wielding both a flashlight and a weapon. Yes, that's right. The flashlight is technically a weapon, and you can't hold 2 weapons at the same time. That means you often find yourself shooting in the dark hoping you hit stuff. Highly annoying.
There is very little to figure out, all the maps are linear with no more than one-way to go. The 'secrets' in the game usually involve either looking behind a shelf for some ammo, or entering a code you found for some safe.
Because the engine is so taxing, there are very few monsters at any given time. Usually 2, at most 5. There are few open areas.
If you haven't gotten the idea, it's basically a very pretty, but utterly dull shoot 'em up. There is no secondary fire, and the weapons are unimaginative. The storyline is virtually nonexistant. After 10 levels, I still know next to nothing, except ****SPOILER*** there is some 'evil' scientist running around, and there's my marine captain trying to help us contact Earth. *** END SPOILER***.
Finding new monsters is undoubtable the 'coolest' thing, since they are so well made. But that is about the only thing that makes me come crawling back. I'd wait a bit before you consider picking this up.
What I really liked about the original doom was entering rooms that had ~30 monsters. Few games are like that these days, with the exception of Serious Sam (which was hella fun, but had the weakest storyline I've ever seen).
The trailer didn't show any of these huge scenes, but more 1 on 1 battles. Well, here's hoping.
Nobody in the history of capitalism has ever suggested capitalism is a silver, panacea, or other remarkably endearing term. It is simply the best choice out of a wide list that has been tested over centuries.
It is not about "solving" problems, since many problems have no "solution", but rather a trade-off. One such problem is how to provide food to every man, woman, and child. Capitalism doesn't solve this problem, but does a much better job at it then its predecessors.
As for civil war and racism, one of the best remedies for those social problems is trade. The countries that trade the most are also the ones most at peace. No sense biting the hand that feeds you, per se.
Sounds to me like a thinly veiled attempt by evil multinationals to exploit the low wage Canadian workers living in sweatcubicles.
Yes. Because International Corporations are running rampant in China and India, causing widespread decrease in standards of living.
Or maybe not. The poorest countries in the world are those with very low per capita foreign investment (ie. Big Bad Corporations). You do the math.
Actually what you would be describing wouldn't be capitalism at all, it would be more like fascism where property rights don't exist. Capitalism is not a classic 'ism', but simply a few steps below anarchy in terms of personal freedom. You can do whatever you wish, except take another man's property without his permission; including his life or posessions.
A government that steals from its own people is not running a capitalist state in the first place.
Hunger is solved in America, and in most first world countries. When was the last time heard of anyone dying of starvation in these countries? Malnourishment is not the same thing, since it often comes from making poor personal choices.