The steepest mainline grades to survive into modern times in the U.S. were about 5% (Saluda in North Carolina). Granted the Appalachians are not the Himalayas. The only photos I've been able to find of the Tibet line show diesel-electric locomotives. These engines are supercharged so the altitude will not be a big issue. If altitude were an issue I imagine they'd use electric locomotives. Using a cog railroad would severely limit the amount of traffic.
The additional articles have all made mention about how sensitive the Chinese have been towards the environment, remarking that 1/2 of the line will be layed on frozen ground. It's hard to know how much of this is propoganda though.
Cruise has been attacking psychiatry, not psychology. Please learn the difference.
Psychiatry has a long and varied history of abuse, misuse, and just being outright wrong. I am sure there are good psychiatrists out there, but the past abuses by those in their profession means that anything a psychiatrist says should be viewed critically.
As for the blood test, who really cares? People can generally tell when something isn't right with them. The problem is that the treatments (whether drug or other) have questionable effectivness and take weeks to months to work (if they ever do) and then come with an assortment of side effects that can be worse than the original condition.
So congratulations future patients, something is definitely, scientifically proven, wrong with you! Treatment will be long, painful, and may not work at all. Bring money.
What was done wrong or poorly in Civilization and its numerous sequels and expansion packs that is being addressed now and provide a compelling reason to purchase Civilization 4?
Did anyone notice that the article references early 2006 as the release date? The Civ4 site still says winter 2005.
Anyway, the problem with content creation for Civilization has never been in the type of units or gameplay rules. Look at Conquests. The content creation problem has been in the art department...something which doesn't add anything to gameplay but is difficult for individuals or small teams to do with high quality. Is Civ4 going to ship with 3D modelling tools?
Frankly the screenshots I've seen look awful. Full 3D is a mistake for this series. Even the unit animations in Civ3 are probably taking it too far. I'd much rather see changes to the glaring problems with gameplay - airpower, unit stacking, combining units, civilization size, civilization attributes, better resource and luxury usage, and production orders to name a few. From the previews I've read some of these are being worked on.
It's funny some have mentioned rebuilding SMAC with the Civ4 engine. I think Civ4 would benefit by trying to be more like SMAC, especially with the unit editor.
...breaking down borders, cultural and language barriers, and even political prejudices.
The same things have been said about internet chat. At last we invented a medium that ignored age, sex, and location yet all we can seem to do with it is ask for age, sex, and location.
I'm glad you had a good experience, my own experience was much less satisfying.
The seller never shipped the items. You have to wait 30 days before you can complain to eBay. When I did file that complaint, I received a form letter telling me they would investigate and it would be another 30 days before I received an answer. 60 days from the sale is also the amount of time I had to have the bank reverse charges. Not having any faith in eBay I contacted the bank and got my money back. It was only then that I got an actual human response from eBay saying that I had violated their policies and my account might be suspended. I saved them the trouble by cancelling my account and my Paypal account and have never looked back.
eBay's new and improved customer service is a step in the right direction. It won't get me back though.
We've already checked the fast and cheap boxes for this project. Do we really want to tempt the relilability demons by going with something like hibernation?
We have plenty of experience with people being confined in small spaces, with little human contact and nothing to do. They're called supermax prisons.
Now maybe they can come up with plans to retrieve space probes that don't involve the use of stunt pilots.
Re:My (slight OT) Walmart Interview Story
on
Inside Wal-Mart IT
·
· Score: 3, Informative
This is part of the "personality test" given all Wal-Mart applicants. It's supposed to filter out hippie scum like yourself and those that might want to join a union. This is 1 of the few personality tests I've heard of where you can actually fail.
I know several people that work at Wal-Mart corporate and its suppliers. The majority don't have college degrees. The few that do didn't do that well in college anyway. And they are worked like dogs. The minimum work week for corporate is 45 hours, but you're not going to ever see the low side of 50.
Slashdot Mirror
The steepest mainline grades to survive into modern times in the U.S. were about 5% (Saluda in North Carolina). Granted the Appalachians are not the Himalayas. The only photos I've been able to find of the Tibet line show diesel-electric locomotives. These engines are supercharged so the altitude will not be a big issue. If altitude were an issue I imagine they'd use electric locomotives. Using a cog railroad would severely limit the amount of traffic.
The additional articles have all made mention about how sensitive the Chinese have been towards the environment, remarking that 1/2 of the line will be layed on frozen ground. It's hard to know how much of this is propoganda though.
Cruise has been attacking psychiatry, not psychology. Please learn the difference.
Psychiatry has a long and varied history of abuse, misuse, and just being outright wrong. I am sure there are good psychiatrists out there, but the past abuses by those in their profession means that anything a psychiatrist says should be viewed critically.
As for the blood test, who really cares? People can generally tell when something isn't right with them. The problem is that the treatments (whether drug or other) have questionable effectivness and take weeks to months to work (if they ever do) and then come with an assortment of side effects that can be worse than the original condition.
So congratulations future patients, something is definitely, scientifically proven, wrong with you! Treatment will be long, painful, and may not work at all. Bring money.
What was done wrong or poorly in Civilization and its numerous sequels and expansion packs that is being addressed now and provide a compelling reason to purchase Civilization 4?
Did anyone notice that the article references early 2006 as the release date? The Civ4 site still says winter 2005. Anyway, the problem with content creation for Civilization has never been in the type of units or gameplay rules. Look at Conquests. The content creation problem has been in the art department...something which doesn't add anything to gameplay but is difficult for individuals or small teams to do with high quality. Is Civ4 going to ship with 3D modelling tools? Frankly the screenshots I've seen look awful. Full 3D is a mistake for this series. Even the unit animations in Civ3 are probably taking it too far. I'd much rather see changes to the glaring problems with gameplay - airpower, unit stacking, combining units, civilization size, civilization attributes, better resource and luxury usage, and production orders to name a few. From the previews I've read some of these are being worked on. It's funny some have mentioned rebuilding SMAC with the Civ4 engine. I think Civ4 would benefit by trying to be more like SMAC, especially with the unit editor.
Is this the point where we take off all our clothes, since it's getting hot in here?
The Republicans didn't come to govern, they came to rule.
...breaking down borders, cultural and language barriers, and even political prejudices.
The same things have been said about internet chat. At last we invented a medium that ignored age, sex, and location yet all we can seem to do with it is ask for age, sex, and location.
I'm glad you had a good experience, my own experience was much less satisfying. The seller never shipped the items. You have to wait 30 days before you can complain to eBay. When I did file that complaint, I received a form letter telling me they would investigate and it would be another 30 days before I received an answer. 60 days from the sale is also the amount of time I had to have the bank reverse charges. Not having any faith in eBay I contacted the bank and got my money back. It was only then that I got an actual human response from eBay saying that I had violated their policies and my account might be suspended. I saved them the trouble by cancelling my account and my Paypal account and have never looked back. eBay's new and improved customer service is a step in the right direction. It won't get me back though.
So it's basically a rebranded WebTV, right? Microsoft must still have 3 warehouses full of those things just waiting to be shipped.
We've already checked the fast and cheap boxes for this project. Do we really want to tempt the relilability demons by going with something like hibernation? We have plenty of experience with people being confined in small spaces, with little human contact and nothing to do. They're called supermax prisons.
Now maybe they can come up with plans to retrieve space probes that don't involve the use of stunt pilots.
This is part of the "personality test" given all Wal-Mart applicants. It's supposed to filter out hippie scum like yourself and those that might want to join a union. This is 1 of the few personality tests I've heard of where you can actually fail. I know several people that work at Wal-Mart corporate and its suppliers. The majority don't have college degrees. The few that do didn't do that well in college anyway. And they are worked like dogs. The minimum work week for corporate is 45 hours, but you're not going to ever see the low side of 50.
I liked this better the first time I saw it and it was called "The Sims 3".