Does anyone even know what kind of weather climate change is going to bring us? What if it brings a utopia for humanity? Why is warmer weather inherently bad and colder inherently good? From my personal experience I'd say the reverse is true. You don't see many people traveling north into Canada in the dead of winter.
Every single time climate change is mentioned its in the context that it is going to bring doom to us all. The change is never subtle. The change certainly is never, ever positive. It's always a cataclysmic world-shattering event. And it's always just around the corner but never actually arrives.
The big irony here is that there is archeological evidence that human thrived when the climate was notably warmer than it is now. Remains of human habitation have been found under receding glaciers in Europe. Humans thrived on the islands of Japan when the climate was warmer and it was believed the seas were several feet higher than they are today. The population declined when the climate cooled. This is a pattern that has been repeated throughout history.
And although we've read that this decade has seen cooling, somehow, just in time for Copenhagen we hear that the climate has, in fact, been warming. The report isn't even out yet, it's due next year, but some people decided to release preliminary findings in order to make an impact at Copenhagen. So we keep hearing this parroted in the news. But there has been unusually early snowfall across the US, Europe and other parts of the world and the media is dead silent about it. Early last year Thailand experienced the first snowfall on record. Beijing has had unusually early snowfalls in recent years as well, along with colder than normal temperatures. Does anyone remember when it snowed in Baghdad a couple of years ago? Of course not. Do a search and you'll uncover these stories, but they'll all be posted on foreign news sites.
It's like there's a concerted effort to push this notion of man-made global warming/climate change. All climate change is somehow inherently bad, like the climate is supposed to be static. How am I supposed to take any of this seriously when the basics defy logic. It seems like there is an effort to force us all to change our way of life. Hell, I read a freaking article this morning that suggested that having pets is contributing towards climate change!
And there's always something threatening our crops. This is how nature works. Sometimes its unfortunate for us especially now that there are so many more people dependent on humans keeping our environment stable. Unfortunately for us it's always going to change, whether we like it or not. I suppose eventually some idiots will decide we should be manipulating our climate to meet some arbitrary ideal and we'll end up causing an unbelievable amount of damage.
What the US economy needs is not this bullshit cool branding. Science-oriented networks have been dumbing down "science" for years now for the sake of making everything cool and exciting. So much so that TLC (The Learning Channel) no longer has anything even remotely related to learning.
What America needs is for kids to learn the value of hard work and an education. They need to understand that your life isn't going to be full of excitement and thrills. They need to understand that sometimes you just have to persevere in order to find success down the road.
Too many people today want everything handed on silver platter. They get indignant when asked to go above and beyond their normal responsibilities and expect everyone to pander to their needs. And when they don't get what they want they go and blame the system for failing them. They're the ones who've failed.
This is one of the reasons why Asia is thriving while the West, is languishing. In Asia they still appreciate the value of hard work and it is instilled in them from a young age. It isn't about doing what's exciting, it's about doing what will make you successful. Although things are changing there too. A lot of this feel-good crap is starting to seep into Asian cultures.
It's not to do what you enjoy, and it's nice to do something exciting. But the problem is that too many people are creating unrealistic expectations and they're portraying most professions as undesirable.
Frankly, I think it's too bad for these guys. If they felt they had such a distinctive identity they should have trademarked it sooner. They had 9 years to do so and didn't bother until Microsoft introduced their rebranded search engine. Being in the design industry myself, we've recommended clients trademark their identities a number of times. These guys, working in the same space should have realized the same for themselves.
They don't even come up in the first 10 pages of a Google search so they apparently didn't bother doing much to promote themselves. Although the results are laden with references to the search engine I was able to find a couple of businesses in there, two examples being The Bing Group and Bing's Bakery.
Then there's the fact that the search engine and this company don't inhabit the same space at all, so whether or not they had been trademarked would possibly have been irrelevant. That said, anyone who knows about the search engine will probably make the connection when they see the name. Whether it will hurt them in any way is debatable, at worst it will be a conversation piece which will be easily explained away especially since they've linked it to the concept of a lightbulb. The problem is that this company doesn't even use their own identity consistently and the Guardian doesn't even get their name right. Their own site refers to the company as Bing! Information Design, but then elsewhere on the site they refer to themselves as Bing!
Considering that they're designers they're likely Apple devotees. They might feel wronged, but I bet they're relishing the opportunity to take on evil Microsoft.
When life begins is a scientific matter, not moral or religious. The fact that egg and sperm comprise living cells means it's alive from day one. Hell, people argue viruses are alive and they lack many of the properties of living cells. However, you can definitely argue that in those early days while the genetic material is all there to form a human it's still a clump of cells. But the first few months in, when you've got a brain forming, a beating heart, a nervous system, limps and other identifiable organs we've absolutely crossed a threshold. We now have a living human.
I realize it's not politically expedient if you're trying to push abortion, but that's a scientific fact. It may not be a fully developed human, but it's a human life, without question. I mean, if we're going to get into debates about whether a fetus is a living human then we could start applying the same conditions to a disfigured adult.
But okay, I could accept first trimester abortions. It's still very early, the fetus isn't fully developed, especially in the first months or two. And the mother has had plenty of time to decide that she doesn't want this kid. But why in the hell are there people pushing for second, and especially third trimester abortions. By that point we've gone way beyond the point of whether it's a living baby or not. Babies are born all the time very prematurely and turn out to be perfectly healthy kids. If you've gone 6+ months with that baby and suddenly decide you don't want it just have some decency and give it up for adoption when it's born.
What I can't stand is when people start playing semantics and twisting science to support a political point of view. Don't dehumanize a fetus to make abortion easier to accept. Admit that it's alive but that you want to the convenience and the choice.
If I'm able to freely buy drugs from overseas then these companies will be forced to be more competitive. And the fact is that if people actually bothered to shop around they'd find better prices, even within the US. But the big problem is that Americans are basically subsidizing the rest of the World.
I guess what you consider a compromise is getting everything your way. That's basically the attitude the democrats have taken.
And you're right, the republicans did much of the same when they were in control and look where it landed. Now it's the democrat's turn to be voted out. Your average American wants congress to be more sensible and do what's best for the nation, not push their own garbage agendas and perform favors for friends.
Looking at the corruption in garbage and the crap they're trying to push on us people have plenty to be afraid of.
If anything, Obama is cutting back on the plans presented by the last president. The Democrat is tightening the government purse strings.
He's tightening the purse strings in one specific area, if this is what you consider tightening purse strings. Did he reduce the plan from $3 billion down to $1 billion or is he raising that figure up to $4 billion. Either way, I'd argue this is one area where we should be spending as much money as we possibly can given the long term benefits that will from this.
Obama cutting spending is like someone spending thousands a month on car payments, clothing and nightlife and then claiming they're cutting back by no longer buying that $2 cup of coffee every morning.
You make it seem like this is somehow unique to America. From everything I read it doesn't seem like it's any better anywhere else in the western world.
It certainly can be argued that Intel was anti-competitive. But then again, there's no reason why AMD couldn't develop their own compilers instead of relying on Intel's.
The irony here is that once the government starts imposing rules that imposes conditions on what a company like Intel can or can't do it has the unintended consequence of making things more onerous for would-be competitors. If someone else wants to compete in this market they're going to be forced to spend a lot more time and money meeting all these requirements. Ultimately you end up in a situation where only those who are already established can thrive, in this particular case that means Intel. Then the government has to step in to prop up a competitor and regulate the monopoly.
If only the real world were that simple. Laptops have vastly different form factors to appeal to different aesthetics, requirements and price points. Companies aren't even going necessarily to the same vendors for all their batteries. Different manufacturers might fit different needs, or another company has offered better prices. Maybe the battery have a standardized process for making these things, but it still needs to conform to the requirements of the client. Perhaps the high price of batteries helps subsidize the overall cost of laptops.
You can spout that it's all greed, but what the hell kind of idiot would run a company that isn't profitable? Laptops are already pretty damn cheap as it is. Who could have imagined even 15 years ago that we could get a good laptop for $500?
Some people never seem happy and seem incapable of appreciating what we've got. If anything, the US retail market needs to be less restrictive. If we had the kind of open market you find in Asia, then we'd really see some competitive prices and compelling features. Our economy is a lot more controlled than most people seem to realize and I'm convinced it's why certain large companies are able to control things as much as they do.
The solution is simple. Think you're being mislead? Not getting enough information? Think something is overpriced? Don't buy it. Work a little harder to look for an item that meets your requirements. Or don't buy at all. I don't see the difficulty here.
Sometimes going with your principles means suffering some inconveniences.
I'd say east of the Mississippi is pretty heavily forested too. I can't help but wonder how much carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere because of forests. I wonder if there are any metrics because it seems like any news posted about the environment is invariably negative.
This is a weak comparison you're trying to make. Electricity is usage based which means you ARE charged for using different appliances. A lightbulb is going to be inexpensive to operate. But run something like a clothes dryer and your usage rises dramatically, meaning you're going to pay significantly more. Run something like an electric welder and you pay even more. This is how pricing for all utilities work.
With Internet and television, on the other hand, you pay a monthly fee for with is, in theory, persistent access and unlimited usage. However, those are two different things. With television you're constantly being fed a consistent feed regardless of whether you're using it or not. You could have a thousand televisions in your house and the provider wouldn't experience any change in load.
With internet usage, however, they would. If pricing were very reasonable I wouldn't have a problem paying for usage. Instead of being stuck paying $50 regardless of how much I use, I could manage usage from month to month and regulate cost. Hell, even with television I wish I could pay less and have access to only the channels I want.
There are a few important caveats here. I would expect my internet payment structure to function exactly like any other utility. That means if I don't use the internet one month I should be paying next to nothing. I also would expect that data rates be nominal. But of course, service providers would love to continue charging the monthly rates they do now and tack on usage fees on top of that. And I expect that there's a single rate, not varying rates based on what you're doing, like paying more for VOIP or downloading movies.
To be completely honest, to date I'm still not clear what net neutrality entails. In principle I understand that it means providing unrestricted access to the internet, but I'm not sure how pricing models fit into that. If you're putting more load on the system why not be charged more? I don't see the inherent problem there in light of the fact, as I mention above, this is how other utilities work. I'm not naive to the fact that providers are looking for the opportunity to take advantage of us, but I don't think it's as simple as saying that we should all have unlimited access to the internet.
I'm concerned about the unintended consequences of pushing net neutrality. The big one being that internet access gets more expensive for everyone because everyone ends up subsidizing the heavy users.
I think there are more important privacy concerns then someone's enjoyment of porn, which no one is likely to discover anyway.
How about political or religious views which people are far more likely to express on social sites? Perhaps some atheist will decide they don't want you working for them because you're a devout Christian. Or a conservative manager wont hire because they've read up on your liberal views. The discrimination doesn't only go one way. And then there's the bigger danger of people have access to your medical records. Imagine the difficulty you might face if employees know you have a persistent medical condition that might necessitate some time off.
Why are the critics inherently dishonest and advancing a political agenda. Can't the same be said about some people pushing man-made climate change? Look at all the exaggerated bullshit Al Gore, someone who has a lot to personally gain from all this, keeps claiming. And what about all the absurd claims being made?
Okay, I can accept that the climate is changing. But my first question is, when hasn't the climate been changing? Secondly, where are all the threats we're supposedly going to face from climate change? We've been hearing about all the dangers for decades now. Twenty years ago they were saying parts of Manhattan would be underwater. Okay, we can dismiss that as a single absurd prediction from an individual scientist. But we're constantly being fed these kinds of claims and not a one has yet proven true. The dangers are always just around the corner.
The fears of global cooling came before my time. But over the years we've gone from acid rain, to the hole in the ozone layer, to global warming to having that renamed climate change. These may all be legitimate threats, but the way they're pushed hard, then dropped in favor of something that is more universal and much harder to argue against.
More rain than usual? Climate change. Less rain than usual? Climate change. Heat wave? Climate change. Snow where none had been seen in decades? Climate change. I could point out that we haven't had a single day this summer break 90 degrees and the last time I experienced real heatwaves was back in high school. It would be promptly dismissed as a localized event.
In the face of this how can a person not be skeptical?
And looking at all the discussions going on in Copenhagen it looks to me like a bunch of nations are looking for free money. Developed nations are expected to pay billions to "fight" climate change. What exactly that entails is beyond me. I'd say that money would be better served producing more efficient and less polluting technologies in addition to making them inexpensive and practical.
Then we have developing nations who seem to be going for a money grab. Should wealthy nations helped impoverished ones? Absolutely, but don't do it under the pretense of fighting global warming. Then we've got other nations looking for free rides in order to ensure economic supremacy. Especially China, and frankly, they no longer qualify as a developing nation. But they're not stupid, they're going to milk this guilt trip the western world seems to be enduring as long as they possibly can. The best part is how oil nations have been saying if the rest of the world cuts down on consumption they should be financially compensated.
There may be legitimately good intentions buried under all this crap. People absolutely should cut down on waste. We need to use energy more efficiently. We need to pollute less. But we shouldn't do so at the expense of progress. And I believe progress will enable a lot of that progress. There may be cases where government action is needed to prod things along. But I don't subscribe to this desire to cram all these policies down our throats at the expense of our economic well-being.
It seems to me like politicians are keen on making favors to certain interest groups. There's this notion that continues to be perpetuated that the green industry is somehow comprised of scrappy upstarts struggling under the heel of big business. Much of the green industry is big business. When the government decides they want to screw a particularly a particular business they do so at the benefit of someone other business, and far too often it's the average person who gets screwed the worst.
So yes, I am skeptical even while I want the environment to be protected, at least in a rational way.
That's not high at all. Many individual games run that kind of budget and I recently read that Gran Turismo 5 has cost $60 million to date. Take a look at the credits for many of these games, these developers have a massive staff. Those salaries alone eat up a fairly significant portion of the budget. Then factor in all the other expenses and it's easy to see why the budgets are so large. That said, it does seem ridiculous that a game costs so much to develop, but that's just the nature of the kinds of games being developed today.
Megaman 9 is available for all 3 consoles, Xbox, PS3 and Wii. However, the difficulty in the demo turned me off from buying the game. I like a challenging game but I just don't have the patience for the sluggish awkwardness of the original games. Why they didn't modernize the game in the style of Mega Man ZX, which is a far superior game, is beyond me. The basic gameplay is the very similar, but the controls are far more fluid. It's one thing to keep losing because of a particularly challenging section and another thing altogether to keep losing because of crappy controls.
I've always liked the visual style of the original games, but I think it's been overdone. Why not use the original art for inspiration but modernize things? Again, I refer to Mega Man ZX as an approach I would have followed.
Certainly, the prospect of being on-call is unappealing. That's the one big obstacle here. However, I say, for the sake of long term job security do it. For me, the logical progression of my career involves moving up into management at some point. Get stuck down in the trenches and down the road you run into a variety of problems. You get too comfortable and fail to move with the times or you price yourself out of the market. Companies will find someone cheaper, without your family commitments and thus more willing to work overtime, to replace you. It's either that or you start your own business.
While I don't follow this as much as I'd like, I do believe that you sometimes need to get outside your comfort zone if you want to ensure your success. Having experienced this personally, and seen it happen with friends, letting yourself get too comfortable can prove to be a mistake.
Now, that said, certainly there are other ways to approach your career. But either way, you're going to have to take measures to ensure long-term job security. And by long-term I don't mean 5-10 years... I mean 10-20 years and longer. You don't want to lose a job 10+ years from now and be unable to find a job because you're essentially too expensive and overqualified for the job you do, but under-qualified for higher level positions. And you lack the contacts necessary to make it easier to find another job.
Obama could spoon Ahmadinejad every night and it would be completely irrelevant. The Iranian media wouldn't report any of it anyway thus negating the whole purpose of these goodwill gestures. And whenever a nation's economy goes to crap the leadership is always quick to blame foreign powers.
What bothers me is that Obama is unwilling to at least harshly criticize Iran. Instead of standing behind the demonstrators he seems to be more intent on trying to not offend Iran's oppressive leaders. It's really no wonder that Iran openly flaunts these stupid, ineffective sanctions. Well, they're ineffective against those they're aimed at, but end up screwing regular citizens.
the most significant e-reader since Amazon's original Kindle
I didn't realize there were dozens of other e-readers that have entered market between the Kindle and the Nook. This is the third, maybe fourth e-reader to have been introduced.
I'm reminded of stupid sports reporters who love to refer to everything in streaks. Two game winning streak! The most runs scored in a game since two weeks ago! Congratulations!
I'm not sure what's with this trend in recent years for Americans to be obsessed with product killers. What's with this notion that there needs to be a single dominant device? Can't two or these of these readers co-exist? It's like a self-imposed monopoly. Ignorant consumers hear this nonsense and they all have to jump on the bandwagon and go with whatever is perceived as dominant. And if a company is lucky enough to have that image as part of their brand, like Apple, then it's even more absurd. At this point all Apple has to do is introduce a reader incorporating their famous industrial design and it will be a surefire hit.
I'm fairly certain this is crippling upstarts, preventing them from being competitive. It's tough to lure investors if they aren't willing to commit over the long term. Everything has to be a something-killer and has to be able to do it overnight.
What we need is for Americans to value principles more than cheap entertainment. Everyone complains about what they pay and what little they get but the vast majority of people just grin and bear it. More than that, they'd go nuts without their daily fix of American Idol or some other crap tv show. If even half their subscribers canceled all of a sudden I'm pretty sure things would start changing. But then most don't even know or care to know what's going on. There's not much we can do about that.
can't believe anyone would imply Jay Leno is an arrogant, overrated network whore whose pedestrian humor wasn't even funny 30 years ago, and who would climb over his mother's dead body for another overinflated paycheck with which to buy another hedonistic toy to add to his vast collection of self-indulgent excess. I just can't believe that.
Sounds like you're describing pretty much all celebrities.
I realize Sony loves gushing over Gran Turismo's purported realism, especially considering how long it's taking to get the game to market. But pretty much any good racing game will produce the same results. I recall reading a few years back about how Formula 1 drivers would sometimes play some F1 game, I forget which one, to better familiarize themselves with the courses.
And for a game trumpeted as the "real" driving simulator it's quite a number of quirks in it's physics engine. Well, judging from GT5 Prologue which fundamentally feels like the previous games in the series. And based on gameplay videos GT5 doesn't look like it will be all that different. This means collisions will still be poorly handled, cars will be incapable of going airborne. Suspension and handling never felt all that convincing either. In professional mode, with all the assists turned off it's always felt like the cars are all driving around on winter tires. And then to compensate for the quirks they have to do things like add these obnoxious time penalties.
I had the opportunity to play Forza 3 recently and found that game to provide a far more fulfilling and convincing driving experience. But the game I've played in recent years that I've found to be most true to life is Live for Speed. Those guys have even managed to account for tire flex, which is really cool. The things that hurt that game are the lack of real, compelling cars and the somewhat outdated graphics. Nevertheless, if I were going to recommend a game that would provide the most authentic driving experience, that would be the one.
GT5 certainly does have the nicest graphics, and the largest lineup of cars. Although there are some very glaring omissions like Porsche. It's inexcusable that other developers can manage to get Porsches in their game but a developer with the weight of Sony behind them is incapable of doing the same.
I have no patience whatsoever for arcade racers so GT5 still appeals to me from that standpoint. Unfortunately, I suspect the bulk of the time was spent rendering the several dozen Daihatsu's in painstaking detail as opposed to making real improvements to the physics engine. Even vehicle damage seems to consist of nothing more than bumpers falling off and doors unrealistically flying open. But unfortunately I don't think the payoff is going to justify the excessive amount of time spent developing the game. It would probably make more sense to tout the game as an automotive encyclopedia.
Ultimately, I don't doubt at all that any good, realistic game provides some level of benefit in the real world. I would definitely exclude most of EA's racing games from that list. And this isn't a guarantee at all. There's a lot that requires experience in a real car. And there are plenty of kids out there for whom driving games have been no help at all.
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Does anyone even know what kind of weather climate change is going to bring us? What if it brings a utopia for humanity? Why is warmer weather inherently bad and colder inherently good? From my personal experience I'd say the reverse is true. You don't see many people traveling north into Canada in the dead of winter.
Every single time climate change is mentioned its in the context that it is going to bring doom to us all. The change is never subtle. The change certainly is never, ever positive. It's always a cataclysmic world-shattering event. And it's always just around the corner but never actually arrives.
The big irony here is that there is archeological evidence that human thrived when the climate was notably warmer than it is now. Remains of human habitation have been found under receding glaciers in Europe. Humans thrived on the islands of Japan when the climate was warmer and it was believed the seas were several feet higher than they are today. The population declined when the climate cooled. This is a pattern that has been repeated throughout history.
And although we've read that this decade has seen cooling, somehow, just in time for Copenhagen we hear that the climate has, in fact, been warming. The report isn't even out yet, it's due next year, but some people decided to release preliminary findings in order to make an impact at Copenhagen. So we keep hearing this parroted in the news. But there has been unusually early snowfall across the US, Europe and other parts of the world and the media is dead silent about it. Early last year Thailand experienced the first snowfall on record. Beijing has had unusually early snowfalls in recent years as well, along with colder than normal temperatures. Does anyone remember when it snowed in Baghdad a couple of years ago? Of course not. Do a search and you'll uncover these stories, but they'll all be posted on foreign news sites.
It's like there's a concerted effort to push this notion of man-made global warming/climate change. All climate change is somehow inherently bad, like the climate is supposed to be static. How am I supposed to take any of this seriously when the basics defy logic. It seems like there is an effort to force us all to change our way of life. Hell, I read a freaking article this morning that suggested that having pets is contributing towards climate change!
And there's always something threatening our crops. This is how nature works. Sometimes its unfortunate for us especially now that there are so many more people dependent on humans keeping our environment stable. Unfortunately for us it's always going to change, whether we like it or not. I suppose eventually some idiots will decide we should be manipulating our climate to meet some arbitrary ideal and we'll end up causing an unbelievable amount of damage.
What the US economy needs is not this bullshit cool branding. Science-oriented networks have been dumbing down "science" for years now for the sake of making everything cool and exciting. So much so that TLC (The Learning Channel) no longer has anything even remotely related to learning.
What America needs is for kids to learn the value of hard work and an education. They need to understand that your life isn't going to be full of excitement and thrills. They need to understand that sometimes you just have to persevere in order to find success down the road.
Too many people today want everything handed on silver platter. They get indignant when asked to go above and beyond their normal responsibilities and expect everyone to pander to their needs. And when they don't get what they want they go and blame the system for failing them. They're the ones who've failed.
This is one of the reasons why Asia is thriving while the West, is languishing. In Asia they still appreciate the value of hard work and it is instilled in them from a young age. It isn't about doing what's exciting, it's about doing what will make you successful. Although things are changing there too. A lot of this feel-good crap is starting to seep into Asian cultures.
It's not to do what you enjoy, and it's nice to do something exciting. But the problem is that too many people are creating unrealistic expectations and they're portraying most professions as undesirable.
Frankly, I think it's too bad for these guys. If they felt they had such a distinctive identity they should have trademarked it sooner. They had 9 years to do so and didn't bother until Microsoft introduced their rebranded search engine. Being in the design industry myself, we've recommended clients trademark their identities a number of times. These guys, working in the same space should have realized the same for themselves.
They don't even come up in the first 10 pages of a Google search so they apparently didn't bother doing much to promote themselves. Although the results are laden with references to the search engine I was able to find a couple of businesses in there, two examples being The Bing Group and Bing's Bakery.
Then there's the fact that the search engine and this company don't inhabit the same space at all, so whether or not they had been trademarked would possibly have been irrelevant. That said, anyone who knows about the search engine will probably make the connection when they see the name. Whether it will hurt them in any way is debatable, at worst it will be a conversation piece which will be easily explained away especially since they've linked it to the concept of a lightbulb. The problem is that this company doesn't even use their own identity consistently and the Guardian doesn't even get their name right. Their own site refers to the company as Bing! Information Design, but then elsewhere on the site they refer to themselves as Bing!
Considering that they're designers they're likely Apple devotees. They might feel wronged, but I bet they're relishing the opportunity to take on evil Microsoft.
When life begins is a scientific matter, not moral or religious. The fact that egg and sperm comprise living cells means it's alive from day one. Hell, people argue viruses are alive and they lack many of the properties of living cells. However, you can definitely argue that in those early days while the genetic material is all there to form a human it's still a clump of cells. But the first few months in, when you've got a brain forming, a beating heart, a nervous system, limps and other identifiable organs we've absolutely crossed a threshold. We now have a living human.
I realize it's not politically expedient if you're trying to push abortion, but that's a scientific fact. It may not be a fully developed human, but it's a human life, without question. I mean, if we're going to get into debates about whether a fetus is a living human then we could start applying the same conditions to a disfigured adult.
But okay, I could accept first trimester abortions. It's still very early, the fetus isn't fully developed, especially in the first months or two. And the mother has had plenty of time to decide that she doesn't want this kid. But why in the hell are there people pushing for second, and especially third trimester abortions. By that point we've gone way beyond the point of whether it's a living baby or not. Babies are born all the time very prematurely and turn out to be perfectly healthy kids. If you've gone 6+ months with that baby and suddenly decide you don't want it just have some decency and give it up for adoption when it's born.
What I can't stand is when people start playing semantics and twisting science to support a political point of view. Don't dehumanize a fetus to make abortion easier to accept. Admit that it's alive but that you want to the convenience and the choice.
If I'm able to freely buy drugs from overseas then these companies will be forced to be more competitive. And the fact is that if people actually bothered to shop around they'd find better prices, even within the US. But the big problem is that Americans are basically subsidizing the rest of the World.
I guess what you consider a compromise is getting everything your way. That's basically the attitude the democrats have taken.
And you're right, the republicans did much of the same when they were in control and look where it landed. Now it's the democrat's turn to be voted out. Your average American wants congress to be more sensible and do what's best for the nation, not push their own garbage agendas and perform favors for friends.
Looking at the corruption in garbage and the crap they're trying to push on us people have plenty to be afraid of.
He's tightening the purse strings in one specific area, if this is what you consider tightening purse strings. Did he reduce the plan from $3 billion down to $1 billion or is he raising that figure up to $4 billion. Either way, I'd argue this is one area where we should be spending as much money as we possibly can given the long term benefits that will from this.
Obama cutting spending is like someone spending thousands a month on car payments, clothing and nightlife and then claiming they're cutting back by no longer buying that $2 cup of coffee every morning.
You make it seem like this is somehow unique to America. From everything I read it doesn't seem like it's any better anywhere else in the western world.
It certainly can be argued that Intel was anti-competitive. But then again, there's no reason why AMD couldn't develop their own compilers instead of relying on Intel's.
The irony here is that once the government starts imposing rules that imposes conditions on what a company like Intel can or can't do it has the unintended consequence of making things more onerous for would-be competitors. If someone else wants to compete in this market they're going to be forced to spend a lot more time and money meeting all these requirements. Ultimately you end up in a situation where only those who are already established can thrive, in this particular case that means Intel. Then the government has to step in to prop up a competitor and regulate the monopoly.
If only the real world were that simple. Laptops have vastly different form factors to appeal to different aesthetics, requirements and price points. Companies aren't even going necessarily to the same vendors for all their batteries. Different manufacturers might fit different needs, or another company has offered better prices. Maybe the battery have a standardized process for making these things, but it still needs to conform to the requirements of the client. Perhaps the high price of batteries helps subsidize the overall cost of laptops.
You can spout that it's all greed, but what the hell kind of idiot would run a company that isn't profitable? Laptops are already pretty damn cheap as it is. Who could have imagined even 15 years ago that we could get a good laptop for $500?
Some people never seem happy and seem incapable of appreciating what we've got. If anything, the US retail market needs to be less restrictive. If we had the kind of open market you find in Asia, then we'd really see some competitive prices and compelling features. Our economy is a lot more controlled than most people seem to realize and I'm convinced it's why certain large companies are able to control things as much as they do.
The solution is simple. Think you're being mislead? Not getting enough information? Think something is overpriced? Don't buy it. Work a little harder to look for an item that meets your requirements. Or don't buy at all. I don't see the difficulty here.
Sometimes going with your principles means suffering some inconveniences.
I'd say east of the Mississippi is pretty heavily forested too. I can't help but wonder how much carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere because of forests. I wonder if there are any metrics because it seems like any news posted about the environment is invariably negative.
This is a weak comparison you're trying to make. Electricity is usage based which means you ARE charged for using different appliances. A lightbulb is going to be inexpensive to operate. But run something like a clothes dryer and your usage rises dramatically, meaning you're going to pay significantly more. Run something like an electric welder and you pay even more. This is how pricing for all utilities work.
With Internet and television, on the other hand, you pay a monthly fee for with is, in theory, persistent access and unlimited usage. However, those are two different things. With television you're constantly being fed a consistent feed regardless of whether you're using it or not. You could have a thousand televisions in your house and the provider wouldn't experience any change in load.
With internet usage, however, they would. If pricing were very reasonable I wouldn't have a problem paying for usage. Instead of being stuck paying $50 regardless of how much I use, I could manage usage from month to month and regulate cost. Hell, even with television I wish I could pay less and have access to only the channels I want.
There are a few important caveats here. I would expect my internet payment structure to function exactly like any other utility. That means if I don't use the internet one month I should be paying next to nothing. I also would expect that data rates be nominal. But of course, service providers would love to continue charging the monthly rates they do now and tack on usage fees on top of that. And I expect that there's a single rate, not varying rates based on what you're doing, like paying more for VOIP or downloading movies.
To be completely honest, to date I'm still not clear what net neutrality entails. In principle I understand that it means providing unrestricted access to the internet, but I'm not sure how pricing models fit into that. If you're putting more load on the system why not be charged more? I don't see the inherent problem there in light of the fact, as I mention above, this is how other utilities work. I'm not naive to the fact that providers are looking for the opportunity to take advantage of us, but I don't think it's as simple as saying that we should all have unlimited access to the internet.
I'm concerned about the unintended consequences of pushing net neutrality. The big one being that internet access gets more expensive for everyone because everyone ends up subsidizing the heavy users.
I think there are more important privacy concerns then someone's enjoyment of porn, which no one is likely to discover anyway.
How about political or religious views which people are far more likely to express on social sites? Perhaps some atheist will decide they don't want you working for them because you're a devout Christian. Or a conservative manager wont hire because they've read up on your liberal views. The discrimination doesn't only go one way. And then there's the bigger danger of people have access to your medical records. Imagine the difficulty you might face if employees know you have a persistent medical condition that might necessitate some time off.
Why are the critics inherently dishonest and advancing a political agenda. Can't the same be said about some people pushing man-made climate change? Look at all the exaggerated bullshit Al Gore, someone who has a lot to personally gain from all this, keeps claiming. And what about all the absurd claims being made?
Okay, I can accept that the climate is changing. But my first question is, when hasn't the climate been changing? Secondly, where are all the threats we're supposedly going to face from climate change? We've been hearing about all the dangers for decades now. Twenty years ago they were saying parts of Manhattan would be underwater. Okay, we can dismiss that as a single absurd prediction from an individual scientist. But we're constantly being fed these kinds of claims and not a one has yet proven true. The dangers are always just around the corner.
The fears of global cooling came before my time. But over the years we've gone from acid rain, to the hole in the ozone layer, to global warming to having that renamed climate change. These may all be legitimate threats, but the way they're pushed hard, then dropped in favor of something that is more universal and much harder to argue against.
More rain than usual? Climate change. Less rain than usual? Climate change. Heat wave? Climate change. Snow where none had been seen in decades? Climate change. I could point out that we haven't had a single day this summer break 90 degrees and the last time I experienced real heatwaves was back in high school. It would be promptly dismissed as a localized event.
In the face of this how can a person not be skeptical?
And looking at all the discussions going on in Copenhagen it looks to me like a bunch of nations are looking for free money. Developed nations are expected to pay billions to "fight" climate change. What exactly that entails is beyond me. I'd say that money would be better served producing more efficient and less polluting technologies in addition to making them inexpensive and practical.
Then we have developing nations who seem to be going for a money grab. Should wealthy nations helped impoverished ones? Absolutely, but don't do it under the pretense of fighting global warming. Then we've got other nations looking for free rides in order to ensure economic supremacy. Especially China, and frankly, they no longer qualify as a developing nation. But they're not stupid, they're going to milk this guilt trip the western world seems to be enduring as long as they possibly can. The best part is how oil nations have been saying if the rest of the world cuts down on consumption they should be financially compensated.
There may be legitimately good intentions buried under all this crap. People absolutely should cut down on waste. We need to use energy more efficiently. We need to pollute less. But we shouldn't do so at the expense of progress. And I believe progress will enable a lot of that progress. There may be cases where government action is needed to prod things along. But I don't subscribe to this desire to cram all these policies down our throats at the expense of our economic well-being.
It seems to me like politicians are keen on making favors to certain interest groups. There's this notion that continues to be perpetuated that the green industry is somehow comprised of scrappy upstarts struggling under the heel of big business. Much of the green industry is big business. When the government decides they want to screw a particularly a particular business they do so at the benefit of someone other business, and far too often it's the average person who gets screwed the worst.
So yes, I am skeptical even while I want the environment to be protected, at least in a rational way.
Why do you assume that liberals don't understand reality and you do? Maybe their theories are more accurate and complete than yours.
Or maybe not.
That's not high at all. Many individual games run that kind of budget and I recently read that Gran Turismo 5 has cost $60 million to date. Take a look at the credits for many of these games, these developers have a massive staff. Those salaries alone eat up a fairly significant portion of the budget. Then factor in all the other expenses and it's easy to see why the budgets are so large. That said, it does seem ridiculous that a game costs so much to develop, but that's just the nature of the kinds of games being developed today.
Megaman 9 is available for all 3 consoles, Xbox, PS3 and Wii. However, the difficulty in the demo turned me off from buying the game. I like a challenging game but I just don't have the patience for the sluggish awkwardness of the original games. Why they didn't modernize the game in the style of Mega Man ZX, which is a far superior game, is beyond me. The basic gameplay is the very similar, but the controls are far more fluid. It's one thing to keep losing because of a particularly challenging section and another thing altogether to keep losing because of crappy controls.
I've always liked the visual style of the original games, but I think it's been overdone. Why not use the original art for inspiration but modernize things? Again, I refer to Mega Man ZX as an approach I would have followed.
Why not get a Plasma tv? LCDs and SDTVs aren't your only option.
Certainly, the prospect of being on-call is unappealing. That's the one big obstacle here. However, I say, for the sake of long term job security do it. For me, the logical progression of my career involves moving up into management at some point. Get stuck down in the trenches and down the road you run into a variety of problems. You get too comfortable and fail to move with the times or you price yourself out of the market. Companies will find someone cheaper, without your family commitments and thus more willing to work overtime, to replace you. It's either that or you start your own business.
While I don't follow this as much as I'd like, I do believe that you sometimes need to get outside your comfort zone if you want to ensure your success. Having experienced this personally, and seen it happen with friends, letting yourself get too comfortable can prove to be a mistake.
Now, that said, certainly there are other ways to approach your career. But either way, you're going to have to take measures to ensure long-term job security. And by long-term I don't mean 5-10 years... I mean 10-20 years and longer. You don't want to lose a job 10+ years from now and be unable to find a job because you're essentially too expensive and overqualified for the job you do, but under-qualified for higher level positions. And you lack the contacts necessary to make it easier to find another job.
Obama could spoon Ahmadinejad every night and it would be completely irrelevant. The Iranian media wouldn't report any of it anyway thus negating the whole purpose of these goodwill gestures. And whenever a nation's economy goes to crap the leadership is always quick to blame foreign powers.
What bothers me is that Obama is unwilling to at least harshly criticize Iran. Instead of standing behind the demonstrators he seems to be more intent on trying to not offend Iran's oppressive leaders. It's really no wonder that Iran openly flaunts these stupid, ineffective sanctions. Well, they're ineffective against those they're aimed at, but end up screwing regular citizens.
I didn't realize there were dozens of other e-readers that have entered market between the Kindle and the Nook. This is the third, maybe fourth e-reader to have been introduced.
I'm reminded of stupid sports reporters who love to refer to everything in streaks. Two game winning streak! The most runs scored in a game since two weeks ago! Congratulations!
I'm not sure what's with this trend in recent years for Americans to be obsessed with product killers. What's with this notion that there needs to be a single dominant device? Can't two or these of these readers co-exist? It's like a self-imposed monopoly. Ignorant consumers hear this nonsense and they all have to jump on the bandwagon and go with whatever is perceived as dominant. And if a company is lucky enough to have that image as part of their brand, like Apple, then it's even more absurd. At this point all Apple has to do is introduce a reader incorporating their famous industrial design and it will be a surefire hit.
I'm fairly certain this is crippling upstarts, preventing them from being competitive. It's tough to lure investors if they aren't willing to commit over the long term. Everything has to be a something-killer and has to be able to do it overnight.
What we need is for Americans to value principles more than cheap entertainment. Everyone complains about what they pay and what little they get but the vast majority of people just grin and bear it. More than that, they'd go nuts without their daily fix of American Idol or some other crap tv show. If even half their subscribers canceled all of a sudden I'm pretty sure things would start changing. But then most don't even know or care to know what's going on. There's not much we can do about that.
Sounds like you're describing pretty much all celebrities.
I realize Sony loves gushing over Gran Turismo's purported realism, especially considering how long it's taking to get the game to market. But pretty much any good racing game will produce the same results. I recall reading a few years back about how Formula 1 drivers would sometimes play some F1 game, I forget which one, to better familiarize themselves with the courses.
And for a game trumpeted as the "real" driving simulator it's quite a number of quirks in it's physics engine. Well, judging from GT5 Prologue which fundamentally feels like the previous games in the series. And based on gameplay videos GT5 doesn't look like it will be all that different. This means collisions will still be poorly handled, cars will be incapable of going airborne. Suspension and handling never felt all that convincing either. In professional mode, with all the assists turned off it's always felt like the cars are all driving around on winter tires. And then to compensate for the quirks they have to do things like add these obnoxious time penalties.
I had the opportunity to play Forza 3 recently and found that game to provide a far more fulfilling and convincing driving experience. But the game I've played in recent years that I've found to be most true to life is Live for Speed. Those guys have even managed to account for tire flex, which is really cool. The things that hurt that game are the lack of real, compelling cars and the somewhat outdated graphics. Nevertheless, if I were going to recommend a game that would provide the most authentic driving experience, that would be the one.
GT5 certainly does have the nicest graphics, and the largest lineup of cars. Although there are some very glaring omissions like Porsche. It's inexcusable that other developers can manage to get Porsches in their game but a developer with the weight of Sony behind them is incapable of doing the same.
I have no patience whatsoever for arcade racers so GT5 still appeals to me from that standpoint. Unfortunately, I suspect the bulk of the time was spent rendering the several dozen Daihatsu's in painstaking detail as opposed to making real improvements to the physics engine. Even vehicle damage seems to consist of nothing more than bumpers falling off and doors unrealistically flying open. But unfortunately I don't think the payoff is going to justify the excessive amount of time spent developing the game. It would probably make more sense to tout the game as an automotive encyclopedia.
Ultimately, I don't doubt at all that any good, realistic game provides some level of benefit in the real world. I would definitely exclude most of EA's racing games from that list. And this isn't a guarantee at all. There's a lot that requires experience in a real car. And there are plenty of kids out there for whom driving games have been no help at all.