Ummm, the cancer cells that develop this mutation become more numerous by being able to spread and become more numerous?
You're thinking too many steps ahead. That this adaptation is ultimately self destructive doesn't matter. It's more like a virus that gets transferred from one species (where the disease state is more controlled and frequently leaves the host alive) to another where the may rapidly develop into a fatal condition. Or perhaps even better, a predator that evolves to become so efficient at predation that it drives to extinction the species it preys on. It doesn't matter that the incremented increases drive the species to that conclusion, it only matters that being a more successful predator makes the individual more likely to leave offspring in the short term.
Economics NEED NOT BE zero sum, but it is generally forced to approximate that. While new value gets created, new money is usually created much more slowly, and that money tends to acrete to the large pools already in existence. As such, relative levels of deprivation tend to grow over time, rather than shrink. This has the effect of making the system zero sum, or indeed worse, negative sum.
Because that's not how it works. You don't find solid lumps of pure elements very commonly in nature.
(That occurs occassionally with metals, from a chemists standpoint I'd say this occurs due to a precipitation mechanism. That is, you have a hot mixture of "stuff" as it cools, things that are particularly heavy, or light, sink or rise to the top, and if they have noticibly lower Bp than the rest of the mixture they'll precipitate out as reasonably pure substances, and so we get copper, iron and other things in a reasonably pure ore. But this is a guess)
Geologists study rocks, their composition, processes of formation, etc. So you can take a rock, and geologists can identify what it is. And you can measure the amount of U and the amount of Pb, the point where you go wrong is that it isn't just U->Pb, its
U(238)->Th(234)->Pa(234)->....->Po(210)->Pb(206), Lead 206 being the stable end product
It's a decay series with over a dozen distinct intermediary species. Most of which can be measured and identified in a sample (some have VERY short half-lives, and may not exist in detectable quantity) You date a sample by doing an analysis measuring all of these.
So then you know, from geology what a rock SHOULD contain, and you know what the decay product impurities are, and how much of these impurities exist. You also know from studies what the rate of natural occurance of all the elements is. From all of this information you can then deduce what the original U concentration a rock was, you measured what it is now, and simple math tells you how many times the original quantity was halved, go yield the current amount. Then you multiply by the half-life and have the age of the original sample.
The simple answer is that you can tell the original concentration of U by analyzing the other decay intermediaries. For Uranium that largely means measuring the concentrations of the long lived ones, so you need to know U(238), U(234), Th(230), and Ra(226). Their relative concentrations will tell you the original total amount of U(238).
Radiometric dating was developed by very smart people, who then submitted it to rigorous testing and analysis by the rest of the scientific community. It isn't their fault if teachers can't manage to properly teach the material. If somebody managed to show that there was a flaw in the way these studies are done there'd be a Nobel prize in it for them. Same for someone showing that that there are "magical" forces that affect the strength of the Weak Nuclear Force (Which is what governs radioactivity) making it vary over time.
Zuh? Automobiles were a step backwards to begin with. They're mechanical horses. Progress is in mass transit. Trains, supported by Aircraft. In this respect, China is ALREADY more advanced than we are (having let our mass transit systems fall into decay and disrepair.) Americans have got to get over automobiles, they are a pointless luxury. I suspect when gasoline prices per gallon exceed the average hourly wage of many employees this fact will catch on rather quickly. Think about it this way, a gallon of gasoline in most places in the U.S. already costs more than half of the hourly minimum wage. I'd argue that cars are only sustainable as long a gallon of gas costs less than 25% of the hourly minimum wage.
Let's see, a company that produces one of the nicest OS's out there, produces a large number of content creation apps that are well respected despite vigorous competition, and generally fights with media companies for more egalitarian relations with the public becoming the dominant monopoly? OH NO!
Microsoft was always a slimy draconian organization. Always was, and always will be. Apple IS different, and a world dominated by Apple would never be as bad as one dominated by Microsoft.
Actually, yes, for awhile. The primary problem is that we have too many moist mucous membranes that will loose fluid. A face mask, covering ones nose and mouth would let one stay alive in space, even without a suit. However, one's eardrums would burst and one's eyes would boil away and probably burst as well. Add pain to the mixture as you think appropriate.
Arguably, one could make a space suit that was simply a skin tight layer + helmet. The problem with that would be that it would have to be *perfectly* skin tight. I.e. Any gas between the suit and you, and you will be VERY uncomfortable, as the gas makes the suit expand like a balloon. Assuming that was worked out, it would have of number advantages over conventional space suits. The joints would be MUCH more flexible, and less complex, as they wouldn't require complicated pressure equalization systems to allow the joints to move.
Hey, I just thought out how to get around the skintight issue. Cover the human in vaseline, or some other viscous nonvolatile (which means the vaseline wouldn't work very long, depending how much was evaporating through the suit) fluid, to fill in all the empty spaces left by the suit!
So you get a system that is = person + skin tight body suit + nonvolatile fluid + bubble helmet + Air supply. I'm certain it would work, just not sure for how long. The limiting factor is how fast you lose volatiles, but it could easily be made to work as long as the longest spacewalks the US has ever attempted, and would be a hell of a lot lighter, simpler, and cheaper.
More like the 19th century, Queen Victoria initiated much of this madness, while in the 18th everybody was a fucking pervert. That includes all the founding father's in the 'states, except George Washington who was pretty straight laced (prude). Thomas Jefferson? Ben Franklin? Adams? All of 'em very much into the bedroom golf.
I do play adventure games, and I can scarcely follow what you are talking about.
Hundreds? Is there some underground industry I've been locked out of? The last adventure game of note I played was "The Longest Journey," and that was released four years ago!
Or are you asserting that games in the vein of Mario 64 and Tombraider are adventure games (they're not. They're action games. PERIOD, no discussion, they're 3D-platformers, therefore action games.) Many games released today bear some elements of adventure games. The whole Resident Evil Series is rather adventuresque, and survival horror in general borrows heavily from the ancestral genre. Indigo Prophecy looks intriguing and I'll probably pick it up immediately.
By and large I see a large number of games with adventure elements being released, but as far as actual Adventure games go, (unless one is japanese and therefore has access to copious ren'ai games) releases are nearly nonexistant.
Admittedly I was incorrect on the release date of Myst 1, I was relying on the Gamefaqs entry which lists 1995.
Full Throttle, and The Curse of Monkey Island represent the last gasp of the original Adventure genre. The Dig was Very Influenced by Myst, especially in terms of puzzle structure and a lack of interation. Grim Fandango and EMI rely on a completely different and arguably inferior interface (as in those games you end up driving the main character around like a car in Grand Theft Auto 2.
I also believe it is incorrect to include games released the same year as proof of the non-death of the genre. You're ignoring the plethora of pre-myst adventure games that dominated the gaming landscape. LOOM, Secret of Monkey Island 1&2 (You list 3&4) The King's Quest Series (arguably the best of which was VII released in 1994, which had been in production for quite a while prior), The Space Quest Series (6 titles old enough to count), The Leisure Suit Larry Series (again 6 titles old enough), The Adventures of Willy Beamish, Simon the Sorceror 1&2, the Spellcasting Series. I'm not even touching on text adventures! The total number of non-Myst-clone adventure games after about 1996 or so is scarcely more than a dozen. Compared to well over a hundred titles I could list prior to that date. (I am making the assumption that due to development lag time, the release of a blockbuster takes a couple of years to truly be felt in terms of imitation, Games don't just Appear, and while Development times a decade ago weren't as long as they are now, they easily exceeded 1 year.).
After about 1996 companies tried to cash in on Myst's popularity by releasing cookie cutters clones, and they bombed in the marketplace
What crack are YOU smoking? Myst came out in 1995. Maniac Mansion came out in 1988 or 1989. Day of the Tentacle about 1993. Secret of Monkey Island 1&2 came out in 1990 and 1992 respectively. The Grandparent is Absolutely correct. Myst killed the adventure genre. Post-Myst everybody started coming out with the crap prerendered 3D puzzle games with no Plot or Character. King's Quest Died. Space Quest Died. Quest for Glory sort of limped along a while, but the latest editions sucked.
You greatly overestimate how old Myst is. N00b. I *remember* reading the reviews when it came out. Bland, no plot, etc.
Firstly, Gaming has become cheap due to inflation compared to other forms of entertainment. A PS2 + extra controller and memory cards will run you a little over $200, then you can go out and buy a game for either $20 (cheap title), or $40-$50 (new title). Note that at the low end, it's already cheaper than 1 (count'em) date to the movies for 2 people. Think about it. Most games provide at least 10 hours of entertainment, so $2-4/hr. The movie is going to run $10/hr, not counting transportation etc. The cost cost of the system gets amortized over the cost of what, 8-10 games? Even then you're still looking at a hobby that runs $5-7/hr of entertainment. Price increases this generation will push gaming into and over the $10/hr bracket.
I think I have provided reasoning to explain why gaming has gone mainstream. Now if one goes back in time to the 80's when gaming Decidedly WAS a niche hobby game prices were near the levels companies are proposing pricing the next gen games. Just check the release prices for '80's games, it's scary, prices were $60-$80. I would also note that the income for the target market hasn't notibly increased, and I mean, inflation may have occured, but minimum wage has stayed horridly low throughout the period, and 20-somethings ain't known for their outstanding income power. But, note that movies were much cheaper per hour in the '80's, compared to gaming which easily pushed over $10/hr.
Regarding production times for games, the OP was relying on information available from the only people who should know, Gabe Newell, Carmack, etc. HD gaming is very resource and time expensive to produce.
As an aside, I don't understand WHY people bitch about the N64, and GC controllers, my hands aren't huge, in fact they are somewhat small, but I find the GC perfectly comfortable, and it can't be that the GC controller is too small, because the PS2 controller is even smaller, so much so I find it uncomfortable. It's also much easier to finger-press face buttons for rapid control (as in an arcade controller) with a GC than a PS2 controller. Held normally it's very easy to find the buttons on the GC, they're all in easily reached locations and easily recognized by touch.
Do you realize how much drug and medical research is done on prison inmates? In exchange for which they get something like $1/day? This is Nazi class shit we have going on here. Many end up with horrible diseases from testing vaccines, or have the diseases induced just to study them, it's absolutely abhorrent.
The answer is yes, Pharmaceuticals ARE the tobacco companies of tomorrow. The worst part is, we pay for it both ways. All research in America is at least mostly publicly funded (By all, I mean 90+%) Even Pharmaceutical companies get federal grants to aid in their research, but mostly they just grab stuff done at the big research Uni's. Then when it's time to sell their "product" they bitch and whine about how they need money to do research and reap unholy profits gouging the sick.
It's disgusting and pathetic. They spend more money hawking their wares than they do coming up with them.
Off topic, but about your sig, you do know that shortages of skilled personel are a GOOD thing for a Profession don't you?
Personel Shortages mean the opportunity to say to an asshole employer, "Fuck You" and leave, no worries. It means job security generally, better pay, better benefits, more professional respect, etc.
Pharmacy, in the USA, currently is enjoying such a situation, has been for many years, and should continue to do so, given current growth trends.
My Grandfather, before he retired, could get an over 100K/year+benefits job, anywhere in the 'States, within 24 hours, if he so chose. Offers from people trying to hire him were a weekly thing, and he wasn't even looking! Fresh 'grads today can do the same thing.
Isn't this a situation you should WANT? To possess immense bargaining power with your potential employers, because of your very real market value?
ouch, so close, but no cigar.
White dwarfs are very HOT, not cold. White dwarfs are the hot inner core remnants of stars, and they stay that way, for the very, very long time it takes to radiate away all that energy. There are no "black dwarfs" (and by that I mean a white dwarf that has cooled to cosmic ambient temperature) in the universe yet, it isn't old enough.
And then there are the others, who fill their computers with music which SHOULD be out of copyright by now, Music more than 30+ years old should be in the public domain. PERIOD. Corporations have violated the social contract by bribing legislators to unlawfully extend copyright into perpuity. Therefore, it is simple civil disobediance to refuse to pay.
Lou Albano was the Actor who played Mario on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Amazingly it didn't kill his career, such as it was. Lou Albano was a Pro Wrestler in mid-eighties and has continued to have minor film/TV spots since the Super Show.
The GPL is a Distribution liscense, it places no limits on end-users whatsoever. The GPL only grants rights, it does not take any away. It grants permission to people to distribute copyrighted material when they would not otherwise have a right to do so. End Users can do whatever the Fuck they want.
The GPL is binding as long a contract along the lines of "You pay me X money, you get to print my book" is binding.
I don't know why you think Nintendo is dying. That's exactly like saying apple is dying. Apparently they're "dying" while raking in moderate to large profits each quarter while their competitors struggle to break even. Nintendo isn't going anywhere. And secondly, the joint Nintendo/Sony Venture was an SNES expansion, that gave rise to the PS1.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet you keep this admittedly cruel and viscious animal as pet for your own amusement, curiouser and curiouser.
Ummm, the cancer cells that develop this mutation become more numerous by being able to spread and become more numerous? You're thinking too many steps ahead. That this adaptation is ultimately self destructive doesn't matter. It's more like a virus that gets transferred from one species (where the disease state is more controlled and frequently leaves the host alive) to another where the may rapidly develop into a fatal condition. Or perhaps even better, a predator that evolves to become so efficient at predation that it drives to extinction the species it preys on. It doesn't matter that the incremented increases drive the species to that conclusion, it only matters that being a more successful predator makes the individual more likely to leave offspring in the short term.
Economics NEED NOT BE zero sum, but it is generally forced to approximate that. While new value gets created, new money is usually created much more slowly, and that money tends to acrete to the large pools already in existence. As such, relative levels of deprivation tend to grow over time, rather than shrink. This has the effect of making the system zero sum, or indeed worse, negative sum.
Mod parent up!
(That occurs occassionally with metals, from a chemists standpoint I'd say this occurs due to a precipitation mechanism. That is, you have a hot mixture of "stuff" as it cools, things that are particularly heavy, or light, sink or rise to the top, and if they have noticibly lower Bp than the rest of the mixture they'll precipitate out as reasonably pure substances, and so we get copper, iron and other things in a reasonably pure ore. But this is a guess) Geologists study rocks, their composition, processes of formation, etc. So you can take a rock, and geologists can identify what it is. And you can measure the amount of U and the amount of Pb, the point where you go wrong is that it isn't just U->Pb, its
U(238)->Th(234)->Pa(234)->....->Po(210)->Pb(206), Lead 206 being the stable end product
It's a decay series with over a dozen distinct intermediary species. Most of which can be measured and identified in a sample (some have VERY short half-lives, and may not exist in detectable quantity) You date a sample by doing an analysis measuring all of these.
So then you know, from geology what a rock SHOULD contain, and you know what the decay product impurities are, and how much of these impurities exist. You also know from studies what the rate of natural occurance of all the elements is. From all of this information you can then deduce what the original U concentration a rock was, you measured what it is now, and simple math tells you how many times the original quantity was halved, go yield the current amount. Then you multiply by the half-life and have the age of the original sample.
The simple answer is that you can tell the original concentration of U by analyzing the other decay intermediaries. For Uranium that largely means measuring the concentrations of the long lived ones, so you need to know U(238), U(234), Th(230), and Ra(226). Their relative concentrations will tell you the original total amount of U(238).
Radiometric dating was developed by very smart people, who then submitted it to rigorous testing and analysis by the rest of the scientific community. It isn't their fault if teachers can't manage to properly teach the material. If somebody managed to show that there was a flaw in the way these studies are done there'd be a Nobel prize in it for them. Same for someone showing that that there are "magical" forces that affect the strength of the Weak Nuclear Force (Which is what governs radioactivity) making it vary over time.
Zuh? Automobiles were a step backwards to begin with. They're mechanical horses. Progress is in mass transit. Trains, supported by Aircraft. In this respect, China is ALREADY more advanced than we are (having let our mass transit systems fall into decay and disrepair.) Americans have got to get over automobiles, they are a pointless luxury. I suspect when gasoline prices per gallon exceed the average hourly wage of many employees this fact will catch on rather quickly. Think about it this way, a gallon of gasoline in most places in the U.S. already costs more than half of the hourly minimum wage. I'd argue that cars are only sustainable as long a gallon of gas costs less than 25% of the hourly minimum wage.
Microsoft was always a slimy draconian organization. Always was, and always will be. Apple IS different, and a world dominated by Apple would never be as bad as one dominated by Microsoft.
Arguably, one could make a space suit that was simply a skin tight layer + helmet. The problem with that would be that it would have to be *perfectly* skin tight. I.e. Any gas between the suit and you, and you will be VERY uncomfortable, as the gas makes the suit expand like a balloon. Assuming that was worked out, it would have of number advantages over conventional space suits. The joints would be MUCH more flexible, and less complex, as they wouldn't require complicated pressure equalization systems to allow the joints to move.
Hey, I just thought out how to get around the skintight issue. Cover the human in vaseline, or some other viscous nonvolatile (which means the vaseline wouldn't work very long, depending how much was evaporating through the suit) fluid, to fill in all the empty spaces left by the suit!
So you get a system that is = person + skin tight body suit + nonvolatile fluid + bubble helmet + Air supply. I'm certain it would work, just not sure for how long. The limiting factor is how fast you lose volatiles, but it could easily be made to work as long as the longest spacewalks the US has ever attempted, and would be a hell of a lot lighter, simpler, and cheaper.
More like the 19th century, Queen Victoria initiated much of this madness, while in the 18th everybody was a fucking pervert. That includes all the founding father's in the 'states, except George Washington who was pretty straight laced (prude). Thomas Jefferson? Ben Franklin? Adams? All of 'em very much into the bedroom golf.
Dude! I Had a giant bazooka thing, and it was pretty freakin cool. It just didn't have many games come out for it. BattleClash was awesome though.
Apparently not, Spread is defined as an algabraic expression as well. His "spread" is just the ratio of two quadrances.
Hundreds? Is there some underground industry I've been locked out of? The last adventure game of note I played was "The Longest Journey," and that was released four years ago!
Or are you asserting that games in the vein of Mario 64 and Tombraider are adventure games (they're not. They're action games. PERIOD, no discussion, they're 3D-platformers, therefore action games.) Many games released today bear some elements of adventure games. The whole Resident Evil Series is rather adventuresque, and survival horror in general borrows heavily from the ancestral genre. Indigo Prophecy looks intriguing and I'll probably pick it up immediately.
By and large I see a large number of games with adventure elements being released, but as far as actual Adventure games go, (unless one is japanese and therefore has access to copious ren'ai games) releases are nearly nonexistant.
Full Throttle, and The Curse of Monkey Island represent the last gasp of the original Adventure genre. The Dig was Very Influenced by Myst, especially in terms of puzzle structure and a lack of interation. Grim Fandango and EMI rely on a completely different and arguably inferior interface (as in those games you end up driving the main character around like a car in Grand Theft Auto 2.
I also believe it is incorrect to include games released the same year as proof of the non-death of the genre. You're ignoring the plethora of pre-myst adventure games that dominated the gaming landscape. LOOM, Secret of Monkey Island 1&2 (You list 3&4) The King's Quest Series (arguably the best of which was VII released in 1994, which had been in production for quite a while prior), The Space Quest Series (6 titles old enough to count), The Leisure Suit Larry Series (again 6 titles old enough), The Adventures of Willy Beamish, Simon the Sorceror 1&2, the Spellcasting Series. I'm not even touching on text adventures! The total number of non-Myst-clone adventure games after about 1996 or so is scarcely more than a dozen. Compared to well over a hundred titles I could list prior to that date. (I am making the assumption that due to development lag time, the release of a blockbuster takes a couple of years to truly be felt in terms of imitation, Games don't just Appear, and while Development times a decade ago weren't as long as they are now, they easily exceeded 1 year.).
After about 1996 companies tried to cash in on Myst's popularity by releasing cookie cutters clones, and they bombed in the marketplace
You greatly overestimate how old Myst is. N00b. I *remember* reading the reviews when it came out. Bland, no plot, etc.
I think I have provided reasoning to explain why gaming has gone mainstream. Now if one goes back in time to the 80's when gaming Decidedly WAS a niche hobby game prices were near the levels companies are proposing pricing the next gen games. Just check the release prices for '80's games, it's scary, prices were $60-$80. I would also note that the income for the target market hasn't notibly increased, and I mean, inflation may have occured, but minimum wage has stayed horridly low throughout the period, and 20-somethings ain't known for their outstanding income power. But, note that movies were much cheaper per hour in the '80's, compared to gaming which easily pushed over $10/hr.
Regarding production times for games, the OP was relying on information available from the only people who should know, Gabe Newell, Carmack, etc. HD gaming is very resource and time expensive to produce.
As an aside, I don't understand WHY people bitch about the N64, and GC controllers, my hands aren't huge, in fact they are somewhat small, but I find the GC perfectly comfortable, and it can't be that the GC controller is too small, because the PS2 controller is even smaller, so much so I find it uncomfortable. It's also much easier to finger-press face buttons for rapid control (as in an arcade controller) with a GC than a PS2 controller. Held normally it's very easy to find the buttons on the GC, they're all in easily reached locations and easily recognized by touch.
Do you realize how much drug and medical research is done on prison inmates? In exchange for which they get something like $1/day? This is Nazi class shit we have going on here. Many end up with horrible diseases from testing vaccines, or have the diseases induced just to study them, it's absolutely abhorrent.
It's disgusting and pathetic. They spend more money hawking their wares than they do coming up with them.
Off topic, but about your sig, you do know that shortages of skilled personel are a GOOD thing for a Profession don't you?
Personel Shortages mean the opportunity to say to an asshole employer, "Fuck You" and leave, no worries. It means job security generally, better pay, better benefits, more professional respect, etc.
Pharmacy, in the USA, currently is enjoying such a situation, has been for many years, and should continue to do so, given current growth trends.
My Grandfather, before he retired, could get an over 100K/year+benefits job, anywhere in the 'States, within 24 hours, if he so chose. Offers from people trying to hire him were a weekly thing, and he wasn't even looking! Fresh 'grads today can do the same thing.
Isn't this a situation you should WANT? To possess immense bargaining power with your potential employers, because of your very real market value?
ouch, so close, but no cigar. White dwarfs are very HOT, not cold. White dwarfs are the hot inner core remnants of stars, and they stay that way, for the very, very long time it takes to radiate away all that energy. There are no "black dwarfs" (and by that I mean a white dwarf that has cooled to cosmic ambient temperature) in the universe yet, it isn't old enough.
And then there are the others, who fill their computers with music which SHOULD be out of copyright by now, Music more than 30+ years old should be in the public domain. PERIOD. Corporations have violated the social contract by bribing legislators to unlawfully extend copyright into perpuity. Therefore, it is simple civil disobediance to refuse to pay.
His IMDB page:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0016304/
The GPL is a Distribution liscense, it places no limits on end-users whatsoever. The GPL only grants rights, it does not take any away. It grants permission to people to distribute copyrighted material when they would not otherwise have a right to do so. End Users can do whatever the Fuck they want.
The GPL is binding as long a contract along the lines of "You pay me X money, you get to print my book" is binding.
2?! HA! Try one american, bucko, and the pneumatic pumps will be straining the whole lift.
I don't know why you think Nintendo is dying. That's exactly like saying apple is dying. Apparently they're "dying" while raking in moderate to large profits each quarter while their competitors struggle to break even. Nintendo isn't going anywhere. And secondly, the joint Nintendo/Sony Venture was an SNES expansion, that gave rise to the PS1.
Light isn't made of protons and electrons. Light is "packets" of energy.