I thought a technical discussion could ensue rather than a discussion of my personal phone bill or other tangental topics. [...] I guess Slashdot isn't the place for these types of discussions?
Usually the human DM makes sure everyone but one person (I've been that person, and not been that person, but I've almost always seen it happen) has fun. But anyway.
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I can only assume you have had some very poor DMs. Furthermore, I don't see what that has to do with the underlying system -- you mention Amber's Storyteller, who presumably is able to make sure everyone has fun. So there is somehow a difference in the systems that inherently makes it so that "almost always" at least one person doesn't have fun when playing D&D, but everyone can easily have fun in Amber? From the rest of your post, I assume you think this has something to do with the presence or absence of lookup tables.
Just to be clear here, I'm not being facetious. I really have no idea what you're talking about. I've played RPGs where the DM/Storyteller was rather poor and hindered the fun we were trying to have as a group, and I've played RPGs where the DM/Storyteller was good and kept everyone satisfied and happy most of the time. I am currently a DM (as in I run a D&D campaign). Yet I have no idea what you mean when you say DMs usually make sure all but one person has fun. (And I don't consider myself an idiot merely for failing to relate to a situation you describe as common but which I seen never to have experienced or at least noticed, despite ample opportunity.)
From the things you've said, I almost get the impression you've had malicious DMs who spitefully warp the plot and/or the odds against one player's character(s), under the guise of "random table rolls" -- having been subject to that, I would understand a bit of resentment toward random tables and DMs who use them. However, I don't think it's fair to blame the system. If there are people not having fun in a particular RPG situation, there is inherently something wrong -- everyone should have fun. Perhaps the DM/GM/Storyteller is doing a poor job, or perhaps the DM/GM/Storyteller's expectations about the style and pace of the game differs from those of one or more of the players (which may or may not be the DM/GM/Storyteller's fault), or perhaps it is one of the other players being disruptive of the fun. And of course there are other possibilities. In any case though, something is not happening the way it should. If the RPG being played doesn't suit what the DM/GM/Storyteller and/or the players expect/want, then change to a different game or change the way the current game is played. That doesn't necessarily mean it was the game's fault, just that it didn't suit the group's purposes.
Every time the DM juggles the odds, there is a winner and a loser.
I beg to differ. As a DM, I juggle the odds all the time, and when I do so it is for the purpose of increasing everyone's enjoyment -- sometimes I might fail and do more harm than good, but I think that rarely happens. I'm going to avoid the terms "winner" and "loser" as I'm not quite sure how to apply them in this context, other than to say that I don't think my odds-juggling has ever created a "loser". Sometimes I increase the hit points of a big-boss type creature on the fly, in order to increase the tension ("he's still not dead?!?"). Sometimes I ignore a special ability a creature has, if I felt it would cause frustration in my players. Sometimes I outright ignore actual hit point stats, and more or less ignore the damage values my players report to me (just having the monster die when appropriate for the story). Sometimes I increase or decrease a DC in my head before a player tells me their roll, or sometimes I hear the roll and then decide success or failure based on what I think would be more fun for all involved, regardless of the DC on paper.
Sometimes I allow things to happen that don't fit any mechanics in any rulebook. Sometimes I say "Sorry, you can't do that.". But sometimes I also use random tables, because it is nice to have random things h
To start, I think linux is great. I have a full-time job where 95% of my work is designing and writing software to run on our cluster of linux servers. I try to use OSS whenever I can, not just because it is free as in beer, but because it fits my personal philosophy much better than using proprietary software.
But my wonderful new semi-rugged laptop runs WinXP. I tried to switch to Ubuntu, but the video driver couldn't do TV-out through the S-video port the way I needed it to -- I toyed around with it for a while, including searching online for help, but I just couldn't make it happen. I give presentations using this laptop on a regular basis, so that is a deal-breaker. I wouldn't mind switching completely to linux (I would love to, actually), but I don't want to deal with dual-booting.
That is the only thing holding me back. Give me drivers that can do "extended desktop" (or something similar where I can have one window of an application maximized on my laptop screen while another window from the same application instance is maximized on the second screen, I don't care if it works exactly like it does in Windows) using my S-video port connected to a TV for the secondary display, and I'll switch. Until then, you won't get me to switch.
I'd be surprised to see any modern car above the absolute lowest class without some kind of device that would keep track of fuel consumption.
That was GP's point -- you don't get that in modern cars unless you buy some outrageous upgrade. I'm not vouching for the truth of that statement, I'm just pointing out that GP is saying that most modern cars don't have a MPG meter.
Just because older cars don't have the MPG meter doesn't mean it has spread to almost all modern cars. Imagine this scenario: car manufacturers start including MPG meters in their cars. Drivers start to notice that 98% of the time, their car doesn't get the MPG the manufacturer advertised, and in fact sometimes gets a good bit less. Drivers start complaining. Someone has the bright idea that if they don't include these MPG meters as standard features they can eliminate the dissatisfaction. Hence, newer cars don't typically include a MPG meter, and only provide one as part of an expensive upgrade bundle (since that profit from the upgrade will probably help more than the dissatisfaction will hurt). If, in addition, it could be shown that the presence of an easily readable MPG meter on the dashboard would lead to significantly lower gasoline consumption (and thus correspondingly less pollution), would this not be an appropriate situation for regulation? The interests of the car manufacturer are hurt by including a MPG meter, so they won't readily do so in a free market, however the interests of the public are advanced by including it. Thus the government steps in and regulates in the public interest. That's how things are supposed to work, and I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think things might have gone as I described.
I'm not saying that's the best use of our lawmakers' working time, but I am saying it's not as ridiculous an idea as you make out. Have you ever lived in a metropolitan area that has ozone alerts in warmer weather resulting partly from the large amounts of car exhaust? It's not fun.
Actually, the first couple sentences of the abstract of the PSU paper I linked previously say, "Old-growth forests are often assumed to exhibit no net carbon assimilation over time periods of several years. This generalization has not been typically supported by the few whole-ecosystem, stand-scale eddy-covariance measurements of carbon dioxide exchange in old-growth forests."
Again, I don't know where that carbon goes, but research seems to indicate that the carbon-absorption of old-growth forests may never really drop to totally insignificant levels. However, I'll grant that at some point, it would be more efficient to cut the trees down and and plant new ones, taking the short-term hit to CO2 absorption. However, the ideal time to chop down the trees (in terms of ecosystem carbon absorption) is much later than what intuition would suggest based on the growing cycle of the trees -- I would assume "mature" trees are past peak growth (or else we wouldn't use that term to describe them), and yet that is when the ecosystem is doing the most carbon storing. Based on the numbers given earlier, I would estimate those trees should be cut down no earlier than 150 years after planting, maybe closer to 200. I don't have enough data to calculate the actual optimal age, but I don't expect to be too far off.
I more-or-less agree with you in principal, but there must be better ways to store carbon than growing trees and throwing them in the ocean (where they'll still rot and release carbon unless we do something to seal them up). If tree stands did most of their carbon storing in the first 20-50 years of their life, then it would be a much better idea. But the reality is that it takes a long time (50-100 years, according to one of the linked papers) just to break even from planting new trees, much less to have a significant net carbon store. Maybe there are better trees for doing this, but I still bet we can come up with something (in terms of carbon capture technology) that would be better than those trees.
You know what? I don't know the answers to those questions. But I notice you haven't provided any supporting evidence for your claim, while I at least provided a link -- it may be unreferenced and biased, but it's something, and that beats nothing.
You can find referenced, peer-reviewed evidence below. However, it gets a little technical, and I honestly find it a little hard to follow since I'm unfamiliar with the terminology and acronyms. If you want anything more thorough than this, you'll have to look for the information yourself.
Here is the abstract of a 2003 paper (cited 40 times according to Google Scholar) which compares stands of ponderosa pines in Oregon based on their age. One statistic they compare is "net ecosystem productivity":
"initiation" stands (9-23 years old): -124 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1) (note that this value is negative -- that's not a typo)
"young" stands (56-89 years old): 118 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1)
"mature" stands (95-106 years old): 170 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1)
"old" stands (190-316 years old): 35 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1)
I wouldn't know what "net ecosystem productivity" is, except that this other paper summarizes those numbers from the first paper, but uses the terms "carbon uptake" when referring to the young, mature, and old stands, and "carbon release" when referring to the initiation stands. This leads me to conclude that "net ecosystem productivity" refers to the net carbon stored by the ecosystem. Note that the stands labeled "mature" (~100 years old) were doing the most carbon storing, while the initiation stands (the youngest, at 9-23 years old) actually produced more carbon than they stored. The gap in the data for stands in the range of 106-190 years old leaves me wondering where exactly they hit their peak -- it's quite possible the peak is somewhere in the 120-150 years old range, though admittedly I could also easily believe the peak is as young as 80 years, based on those numbers.
Here is the abstract of a 2001 paper (cited 102 times according to Google Scholar) which has a three-author overlap with the first paper, and which concludes (among other things), that for ponderosa pine stands in Oregon it takes 50-100 years of regrowth to replace the stored carbon which is lost as a result of a clear-cut or "stand-replacing fire". I can't tell you whether that estimate is accurate for "modern" logging techniques or not.
Care to find similarly-respectable evidence to the contrary? These two papers studied only one particular type of forest in one particular region of the US, so I admit that the results could be idiosyncratic, but until I'm given some reason to think these trees and/or that region is unusual, I'm going to assume something at least vaguely similar holds true in most parts of the world.
The established myth that forests drastically slow or even stop their carbon sequestration as they mature has been found to be false. Research shows that intact mature forest ecosystems have a net carbon absorption not directly related to the growth of the established forest trees. Undergrowth and natural regeneration additionally contribute to carbon absorption. Forest soils also hold carbon, which is lost into the atmosphere when the forest is logged.
Legality is not the same as morality/ethics. Some people are more concerned about the morality of their actions than the legality of their actions. I, for example, care very little about the legality of my actions. However, I am concerned with the likely consequences of my actions, and that means I must consider whether I am likely to be punished is some way for actions I am considering. This is often related to the legality of those actions, but again it is not the legality which concerns me -- only the ethical considerations paired with whether and to what extent I am likely to be punished. Sometimes, those two sets of concerns are even at odds with each other, unfortunately.
In the hypothetical case we're discussing here, illegally obtaining a replacement for a legally-purchased copy of WinXP is not likely to be punished. In fact, even if Microsoft were to attempt prosecution, there is at least a chance of avoiding punishment as a result of possessing a valid license, so punishment is less likely in this case than for someone pirating the OS without owning a legal copy. I also find nothing morally objectionable about it. So, I would do the same thing (though maybe without the cursing).
a) Everyone CAN look at it [the source] (so no backdoors will be implemented)
a) is correct, conclusion is not (see Ken Thompson's attack against a compiler)
Actually, I would say a)'s conclusion was correct (and yes I'm familiar with the attack you mentioned). The poster did not say "no backdoors can exist in the software", but "no backdoors will be implemented". Assuming the poster meant "no backdoors will be implemented in the software being examined", I would say it is a correct statement -- there is a difference between a backdoor implemented in the source of software and a backdoor injected into the software by a compiler. Those are 2 different vectors that can both allow a backdoor in software (and both are possible regardless of whether it is closed or open source). Open source greatly reduces the likelihood of one of those vectors being attempted, and if attempted it probably reduces the expected length of time it will persist unnoticed.
Saying open source software is no protection against backdoors because it is vulnerable to compiler-injected code is like saying that wearing a bullet-proof vest into a warzone is no protection because you're still just as vulnerable to stepping on a land mine.
Just to take one counter-example that Americans should be familiar with, if Abraham Lincoln had let the local governments decide there'd be plenty of slave states left. Today, I think everyone agrees it was the right decision (which is why I chose it and not something more current).
Contrary to popular understanding, the Civil War was not fought for the purpose of ending slavery, which makes it an invalid example; although the end of slavery in the US was a result of the war, that was not the motivation behind the Civil War. Read the text of the Emancipation Proclamation and you'll see -- Abraham Lincoln originally freed only the slaves in rebelling states, leaving the status of all slaves in the Union unchanged. Note in particular that although President Lincoln did say he believed it an act of justice, the Constitutional justification given was not that all men and women have a right to freedom from slavery, but rather "military necessity". You know, just to encourage more people to read it, I'll quote it here (emphasis mine):
A PROCLAMATION
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for supressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within sai
What the previous poster's link points out is that statistics such as those will *always* provide numbers that look warped, because the statistic itself is inherently slanted. Even a flat tax rate will yield similar numbers (and they'll be more extreme the more disparity there is between the top earners and the bottom earners). If, instead, we saw statistics such as:
the top 1% of earners pay 1% of all federal income taxes
the top 50% of earners pay 50% of all federal income taxes
the lowest 1% of earners pay 1% of all federal income taxes ... etc.
That would be indicative of a flat tax (not a flat tax rate, but a flat tax -- as in "everyone pays the same amount of money to the government"), which can also be called a regressive tax. You know what that translates into? "If you start out poor, or at any point find yourself poor, you're probably going to stay there." Economic mobility is one of the great ideals of America, and a regressive tax hurts the economic mobility of those who need it most -- the bottom earners.
I also disagree with your characterization of "progressive" income taxes as "punitive". Progressive taxes are based on the idea that individuals don't need the second half of their income as much as the first half. For example, one year say I make $50k and it gets taxed at some rate X. The next year, say I make $100k. The first $50k will probably get taxed at rate X, just like the year before; the second $50k will get taxed at a higher rate, let's say $2X. I would be more inclined to agree with you that it would be punitive if they taxed my entire $100k at $2X, but even then it depends on the exact implementation. In the end, here is why I disagree with you: when all else is equal, if you make more, you will keep more. If there were times when earning an extra $5k in the year would be worse than not earning it (in terms of net income after taxes), then it would be punitive. While this may be true in specific circumstances due to tax credits that only apply if you have income under a certain threshold, that is the fault of those tax credits, not the progressive tax rate.
Progressive tax rates do not discourage people from earning money. Progressive tax rates are not intended to discourage people from earning money. They do not punish people for earning more -- or at least if they do, they don't do a very good job of it, since in mind mind the primary objective of punishment is to discourage the act (either in the once committing the act, or others considering committing the act). Therefore progressive tax rates are not punitive, and personally I feel that it is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to say so.
> It's simple redistribution, and the more you make, the more it tilts away from you.
Yes, but it never tilts away enough that you'd prefer to earn less than more, does it?
Which explains why he got a -1 Offtopic mod -- the poster he was replying to never made any partisan comments, and referred to the "current administration".
Actually, I don't believe that would compile (unless your line-breaks just got swallowed because you didn't use HTML formatting). You'll want something more like the following:
"Some of us are just looking for one that lets us make calls."
One what? Cell phone service plan? That's the point -- this discussion is not about services you get from your cell service provider. It is about services that are useful for cell phones, or ones that leverage cell phones. For example, some of the services being discussed are services that can take place via phone call. From the summary: "a service that can tell what artist and song you're listening to" -- I assume no one is going to manage that through text. It might be like a 1-900 number in the US (since the article is about services in the UK), in which case it has nothing to do with whether you want bells and whistles with your phone. The "text-based service that answers any question you can throw at it" could presumably have a dial-up branch as well (though it might require different personnel, since there is more interpersonal interaction in a phone call than a text exchange).
What about a service I think I saw advertised once where you can call, tell the person whatever information you can about where you are (city with street intersection, or maybe general region and how you got there if you don't even know what town you're in), and where you're trying to go, and they get directions for you? Are you saying that "isn't valuable enough to waste our money on"? Maybe not most of the time, but every once in a while that sort of service could make all the difference in the world, and might very well be worth a one-time $1, $5, or even $10 charge. This service might be usable from a land-line as well, but would be especially useful in situations where you don't have access to a land-line or don't have time to go find one, and therefore it leverages cell phones.
So, even if you insist on saying that cell phones don't need to do anything but make phone calls, that doesn't justify saying there's no service worth paying for that makes cell phones more useful. Simply limit yourself to services without a subscription fee that can be used via phone call.
As others have pointed out, I believe that's called "BitTorrent."
One key difference is that the international digital library GP was describing would probably pay for CDs and DVDs with money from taxes, where the current BitTorrent system is funded by through the RIAA/MIAA legal departments.
then there are even more convoluted cases like global warming. Whomever decides who and how many editors a global warming article has, gets to choose the slant.
I agree -- with global warming, there's debate about whether there's even any real debate, so deciding whether or not to include dissenting editors becomes a controversial decision itself. Shame, that.
[Muslim terrorists] already want to kill me just because of what I do or don't believe.
Um, no. From the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on "terrorism": Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are: intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated for a political goal (as opposed to a hate crime or "madman" attack), [and] deliberately target "non-combatants". Do you believe 9/11 was a hate crime? What about the violence in Iraq? Beirut? If you do, then I think you are very ignorant of the issue. It's not about hate, at least not primarily (I'll grant that hate has become a factor, but I think it's an inflammatory symptom that results in feedback, not a fundamental cause, of the violence). It's about trying to accomplish a political goal. No, the goal isn't to convince/scare us into becoming Muslim -- it's not hard to realize 9/11 would have the opposite effect, and bin Laden is not stupid.
So, give me a plan -- an intelligent one -- that allows me to remain me and deal with those people.
I can't lay out a complete plan, because it's a very complex issue. But, you could start by trying to understand their motivations and their perspective. You don't have to agree with them or convert and become them, but you can't hope to know how to deal with them until you understand them. If you are really so clueless about the motivations of Muslim terrorists, I can't possibly educate you in this post -- I can only suggest where to start educating yourself. The information isn't being hidden or suppressed, so it's not too hard to find if you're willing to go look; unfortunately, there's no real mainstream discussion of those motivations in the US, so you will have to go find the information yourself rather than just reading pre-digested news. A lot of it has to do with the Palestine/Israel conflict and our influence (past and present) there -- read some translations of bin Laden's statements, he's not trying to hide his motivation. And no, the Palestine/Israel conflict is not because "they hate the Jews". No matter who is right or wrong in that conflict, no matter what a practical solution would be, no matter what atrocities have been committed by which groups, anyone who has researched the history of the conflict even a little will realize there's far more behind it than blind hate.
HR: But there's nothing to say we still have to give you the job. If you want to be pedantic we'll hire you for 5 minutes and then fire you. Now do you want the new deal or not?
Employee: So, you'll pay $Y for relocation and spend how many person-hours filling out paperwork just to fire me after 5 minutes? I'll call your bluff -- I might get screwed, but so will you.
It's kinda like the tit-for-tat Prisoner's Dilemma strategy, except you can see the other player (the company) is planning to defect and punish them immediately.
Also, my current contract entitles me to 30 days notice between when they tell me my job will end and when I stop getting paid (though, at their discretion, I can be relieved of my duties and accress as soon as they give notice). If that or something similar (perhaps 2 weeks) is also "company policy", then they'd have to pay $Y and 1-2 paychecks without expecting much or any work in return if they fire you immediately (depending on the environment, it could easily take a month before training is completed and/or a new employee can be expected to be up to full productivity).
In order to capture as much information as a one megapixel image, this camera will have to take one million different measurements.
You mean "In order to capture as much information as a one megapixel image with no compression in the final image". In contrast, what this camera is doing is essentially only capturing as much information as is necessary to make the final, compressed image. It may be one megapixel in the sense of having ~1M pixels in the final image, but if it's been JPEG compressed to 80% then it doesn't need ~1M measurements.
Actually, wouldn't CO2 per person be a better metric than total CO2 per country, at least in some ways? I'm not saying that makes the numbers OK, just that a measure of the room for improvement in each country would probably be better served by per person data.
Math 101: 2000 - 400 = 1600. The dead peak of that mini ice age. Either they knowingly compared the temperatures to exactly a *very short* period *they* say was a "cold spell", stopped looking, and were *astonished* to find a heat increase. Or, in the peak of that self-termed "mini ice age", it was hotter.
Huh?
As I understand it, they're not saying it was hotter then, nor were they arbitrarily stopping 400 years ago. They just don't tend to have as much or as reliable data for before that point (or perhaps they just don't trust their extrapolations to be as accurate past that -- I'm not sure). What they're really saying is "we have high confidence it's the hottest it's been for as long as we have a good idea of the temperatures, which is approximately 400 years". These details were garbled or lost in most news reporting, but it was a major aspect of the report in question.
You attack the scientist for making nonsensical statements, but the problem is the dumbing down of news -- most mainstream news outlets like to provide predigested news, and often they screw it up or leave out important details. When you're reading an article on msnbc.com about a scientific report and you read something that doesn't make sense, don't assume it's the scientific report's fault; often it's the middleman.
Take a look at the official press release about the report regarding the "400 years" comment. The full title of the press release is very clear, and the first paragraph elaborates on the part you're questioning (emphasis mine):
'High Confidence' That Planet Is Warmest in 400 Years;
Less Confidence in Temperature Reconstructions Prior to 1600
WASHINGTON -- There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new report from the National Research Council. Less confidence can be placed in proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperatures for A.D. 900 to 1600, said the committee that wrote the report, although the available proxy evidence does indicate that many locations were warmer during the past 25 years than during any other 25-year period since 900. Very little confidence can be placed in statements about average global surface temperatures prior to A.D. 900 because the proxy data for that time frame are sparse, the committee added.
Actually, the OP used both words: "They don't steal anything, copyright infringement isn't theft."
The start of the reply was then "Sure it is.", which is clearly a response to the "copyright infringement isn't theft" part rather than the "They don't steal anything" part, but then the definition given is for "steal" rather than "theft" -- probably because the definitions for "theft" explicitly refer to "taking and carrying away" and/or "larceny", neither of which applies to "stealing" in the copyright-infringement sense of copying ideas or words.
This thread is fully of misdirection and confusion (whether intentional or not). Be careful who you are defending.
</pedant>
Slashdot Mirror
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I can only assume you have had some very poor DMs. Furthermore, I don't see what that has to do with the underlying system -- you mention Amber's Storyteller, who presumably is able to make sure everyone has fun. So there is somehow a difference in the systems that inherently makes it so that "almost always" at least one person doesn't have fun when playing D&D, but everyone can easily have fun in Amber? From the rest of your post, I assume you think this has something to do with the presence or absence of lookup tables.
Just to be clear here, I'm not being facetious. I really have no idea what you're talking about. I've played RPGs where the DM/Storyteller was rather poor and hindered the fun we were trying to have as a group, and I've played RPGs where the DM/Storyteller was good and kept everyone satisfied and happy most of the time. I am currently a DM (as in I run a D&D campaign). Yet I have no idea what you mean when you say DMs usually make sure all but one person has fun. (And I don't consider myself an idiot merely for failing to relate to a situation you describe as common but which I seen never to have experienced or at least noticed, despite ample opportunity.)
From the things you've said, I almost get the impression you've had malicious DMs who spitefully warp the plot and/or the odds against one player's character(s), under the guise of "random table rolls" -- having been subject to that, I would understand a bit of resentment toward random tables and DMs who use them. However, I don't think it's fair to blame the system. If there are people not having fun in a particular RPG situation, there is inherently something wrong -- everyone should have fun. Perhaps the DM/GM/Storyteller is doing a poor job, or perhaps the DM/GM/Storyteller's expectations about the style and pace of the game differs from those of one or more of the players (which may or may not be the DM/GM/Storyteller's fault), or perhaps it is one of the other players being disruptive of the fun. And of course there are other possibilities. In any case though, something is not happening the way it should. If the RPG being played doesn't suit what the DM/GM/Storyteller and/or the players expect/want, then change to a different game or change the way the current game is played. That doesn't necessarily mean it was the game's fault, just that it didn't suit the group's purposes.
I beg to differ. As a DM, I juggle the odds all the time, and when I do so it is for the purpose of increasing everyone's enjoyment -- sometimes I might fail and do more harm than good, but I think that rarely happens. I'm going to avoid the terms "winner" and "loser" as I'm not quite sure how to apply them in this context, other than to say that I don't think my odds-juggling has ever created a "loser". Sometimes I increase the hit points of a big-boss type creature on the fly, in order to increase the tension ("he's still not dead?!?"). Sometimes I ignore a special ability a creature has, if I felt it would cause frustration in my players. Sometimes I outright ignore actual hit point stats, and more or less ignore the damage values my players report to me (just having the monster die when appropriate for the story). Sometimes I increase or decrease a DC in my head before a player tells me their roll, or sometimes I hear the roll and then decide success or failure based on what I think would be more fun for all involved, regardless of the DC on paper.
Sometimes I allow things to happen that don't fit any mechanics in any rulebook. Sometimes I say "Sorry, you can't do that.". But sometimes I also use random tables, because it is nice to have random things h
To start, I think linux is great. I have a full-time job where 95% of my work is designing and writing software to run on our cluster of linux servers. I try to use OSS whenever I can, not just because it is free as in beer, but because it fits my personal philosophy much better than using proprietary software.
But my wonderful new semi-rugged laptop runs WinXP. I tried to switch to Ubuntu, but the video driver couldn't do TV-out through the S-video port the way I needed it to -- I toyed around with it for a while, including searching online for help, but I just couldn't make it happen. I give presentations using this laptop on a regular basis, so that is a deal-breaker. I wouldn't mind switching completely to linux (I would love to, actually), but I don't want to deal with dual-booting.
That is the only thing holding me back. Give me drivers that can do "extended desktop" (or something similar where I can have one window of an application maximized on my laptop screen while another window from the same application instance is maximized on the second screen, I don't care if it works exactly like it does in Windows) using my S-video port connected to a TV for the secondary display, and I'll switch. Until then, you won't get me to switch.
I'd be surprised to see any modern car above the absolute lowest class without some kind of device that would keep track of fuel consumption.
That was GP's point -- you don't get that in modern cars unless you buy some outrageous upgrade. I'm not vouching for the truth of that statement, I'm just pointing out that GP is saying that most modern cars don't have a MPG meter.
Just because older cars don't have the MPG meter doesn't mean it has spread to almost all modern cars. Imagine this scenario: car manufacturers start including MPG meters in their cars. Drivers start to notice that 98% of the time, their car doesn't get the MPG the manufacturer advertised, and in fact sometimes gets a good bit less. Drivers start complaining. Someone has the bright idea that if they don't include these MPG meters as standard features they can eliminate the dissatisfaction. Hence, newer cars don't typically include a MPG meter, and only provide one as part of an expensive upgrade bundle (since that profit from the upgrade will probably help more than the dissatisfaction will hurt). If, in addition, it could be shown that the presence of an easily readable MPG meter on the dashboard would lead to significantly lower gasoline consumption (and thus correspondingly less pollution), would this not be an appropriate situation for regulation? The interests of the car manufacturer are hurt by including a MPG meter, so they won't readily do so in a free market, however the interests of the public are advanced by including it. Thus the government steps in and regulates in the public interest. That's how things are supposed to work, and I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think things might have gone as I described.
I'm not saying that's the best use of our lawmakers' working time, but I am saying it's not as ridiculous an idea as you make out. Have you ever lived in a metropolitan area that has ozone alerts in warmer weather resulting partly from the large amounts of car exhaust? It's not fun.
Actually, the first couple sentences of the abstract of the PSU paper I linked previously say, "Old-growth forests are often assumed to exhibit no net carbon assimilation over time periods of several years. This generalization has not been typically supported by the few whole-ecosystem, stand-scale eddy-covariance measurements of carbon dioxide exchange in old-growth forests."
Again, I don't know where that carbon goes, but research seems to indicate that the carbon-absorption of old-growth forests may never really drop to totally insignificant levels. However, I'll grant that at some point, it would be more efficient to cut the trees down and and plant new ones, taking the short-term hit to CO2 absorption. However, the ideal time to chop down the trees (in terms of ecosystem carbon absorption) is much later than what intuition would suggest based on the growing cycle of the trees -- I would assume "mature" trees are past peak growth (or else we wouldn't use that term to describe them), and yet that is when the ecosystem is doing the most carbon storing. Based on the numbers given earlier, I would estimate those trees should be cut down no earlier than 150 years after planting, maybe closer to 200. I don't have enough data to calculate the actual optimal age, but I don't expect to be too far off.
I more-or-less agree with you in principal, but there must be better ways to store carbon than growing trees and throwing them in the ocean (where they'll still rot and release carbon unless we do something to seal them up). If tree stands did most of their carbon storing in the first 20-50 years of their life, then it would be a much better idea. But the reality is that it takes a long time (50-100 years, according to one of the linked papers) just to break even from planting new trees, much less to have a significant net carbon store. Maybe there are better trees for doing this, but I still bet we can come up with something (in terms of carbon capture technology) that would be better than those trees.
You can find referenced, peer-reviewed evidence below. However, it gets a little technical, and I honestly find it a little hard to follow since I'm unfamiliar with the terminology and acronyms. If you want anything more thorough than this, you'll have to look for the information yourself.
Here is the abstract of a 2003 paper (cited 40 times according to Google Scholar) which compares stands of ponderosa pines in Oregon based on their age. One statistic they compare is "net ecosystem productivity":
- "initiation" stands (9-23 years old): -124 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1) (note that this value is negative -- that's not a typo)
- "young" stands (56-89 years old): 118 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1)
- "mature" stands (95-106 years old): 170 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1)
- "old" stands (190-316 years old): 35 g C m^(-2) yr^(-1)
I wouldn't know what "net ecosystem productivity" is, except that this other paper summarizes those numbers from the first paper, but uses the terms "carbon uptake" when referring to the young, mature, and old stands, and "carbon release" when referring to the initiation stands. This leads me to conclude that "net ecosystem productivity" refers to the net carbon stored by the ecosystem. Note that the stands labeled "mature" (~100 years old) were doing the most carbon storing, while the initiation stands (the youngest, at 9-23 years old) actually produced more carbon than they stored. The gap in the data for stands in the range of 106-190 years old leaves me wondering where exactly they hit their peak -- it's quite possible the peak is somewhere in the 120-150 years old range, though admittedly I could also easily believe the peak is as young as 80 years, based on those numbers.Here is the abstract of a 2001 paper (cited 102 times according to Google Scholar) which has a three-author overlap with the first paper, and which concludes (among other things), that for ponderosa pine stands in Oregon it takes 50-100 years of regrowth to replace the stored carbon which is lost as a result of a clear-cut or "stand-replacing fire". I can't tell you whether that estimate is accurate for "modern" logging techniques or not.
Care to find similarly-respectable evidence to the contrary? These two papers studied only one particular type of forest in one particular region of the US, so I admit that the results could be idiosyncratic, but until I'm given some reason to think these trees and/or that region is unusual, I'm going to assume something at least vaguely similar holds true in most parts of the world.
So? GP never said anything about legality.
Legality is not the same as morality/ethics. Some people are more concerned about the morality of their actions than the legality of their actions. I, for example, care very little about the legality of my actions. However, I am concerned with the likely consequences of my actions, and that means I must consider whether I am likely to be punished is some way for actions I am considering. This is often related to the legality of those actions, but again it is not the legality which concerns me -- only the ethical considerations paired with whether and to what extent I am likely to be punished. Sometimes, those two sets of concerns are even at odds with each other, unfortunately.
In the hypothetical case we're discussing here, illegally obtaining a replacement for a legally-purchased copy of WinXP is not likely to be punished. In fact, even if Microsoft were to attempt prosecution, there is at least a chance of avoiding punishment as a result of possessing a valid license, so punishment is less likely in this case than for someone pirating the OS without owning a legal copy. I also find nothing morally objectionable about it. So, I would do the same thing (though maybe without the cursing).
Saying open source software is no protection against backdoors because it is vulnerable to compiler-injected code is like saying that wearing a bullet-proof vest into a warzone is no protection because you're still just as vulnerable to stepping on a land mine.
Contrary to popular understanding, the Civil War was not fought for the purpose of ending slavery, which makes it an invalid example; although the end of slavery in the US was a result of the war, that was not the motivation behind the Civil War. Read the text of the Emancipation Proclamation and you'll see -- Abraham Lincoln originally freed only the slaves in rebelling states, leaving the status of all slaves in the Union unchanged. Note in particular that although President Lincoln did say he believed it an act of justice, the Constitutional justification given was not that all men and women have a right to freedom from slavery, but rather "military necessity". You know, just to encourage more people to read it, I'll quote it here (emphasis mine):
What the previous poster's link points out is that statistics such as those will *always* provide numbers that look warped, because the statistic itself is inherently slanted. Even a flat tax rate will yield similar numbers (and they'll be more extreme the more disparity there is between the top earners and the bottom earners). If, instead, we saw statistics such as:
... etc.
the top 1% of earners pay 1% of all federal income taxes
the top 50% of earners pay 50% of all federal income taxes
the lowest 1% of earners pay 1% of all federal income taxes
That would be indicative of a flat tax (not a flat tax rate, but a flat tax -- as in "everyone pays the same amount of money to the government"), which can also be called a regressive tax. You know what that translates into? "If you start out poor, or at any point find yourself poor, you're probably going to stay there." Economic mobility is one of the great ideals of America, and a regressive tax hurts the economic mobility of those who need it most -- the bottom earners.
I also disagree with your characterization of "progressive" income taxes as "punitive". Progressive taxes are based on the idea that individuals don't need the second half of their income as much as the first half. For example, one year say I make $50k and it gets taxed at some rate X. The next year, say I make $100k. The first $50k will probably get taxed at rate X, just like the year before; the second $50k will get taxed at a higher rate, let's say $2X. I would be more inclined to agree with you that it would be punitive if they taxed my entire $100k at $2X, but even then it depends on the exact implementation. In the end, here is why I disagree with you: when all else is equal, if you make more, you will keep more. If there were times when earning an extra $5k in the year would be worse than not earning it (in terms of net income after taxes), then it would be punitive. While this may be true in specific circumstances due to tax credits that only apply if you have income under a certain threshold, that is the fault of those tax credits, not the progressive tax rate.
Progressive tax rates do not discourage people from earning money. Progressive tax rates are not intended to discourage people from earning money. They do not punish people for earning more -- or at least if they do, they don't do a very good job of it, since in mind mind the primary objective of punishment is to discourage the act (either in the once committing the act, or others considering committing the act). Therefore progressive tax rates are not punitive, and personally I feel that it is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to say so.
> It's simple redistribution, and the more you make, the more it tilts away from you.
Yes, but it never tilts away enough that you'd prefer to earn less than more, does it?
He should call it a Suicidebot.
Sounds like a great way to get funding from the US government -- or at least free room and board with a bunk bed.
Which explains why he got a -1 Offtopic mod -- the poster he was replying to never made any partisan comments, and referred to the "current administration".
"Some of us are just looking for one that lets us make calls."
One what? Cell phone service plan? That's the point -- this discussion is not about services you get from your cell service provider. It is about services that are useful for cell phones, or ones that leverage cell phones. For example, some of the services being discussed are services that can take place via phone call. From the summary: "a service that can tell what artist and song you're listening to" -- I assume no one is going to manage that through text. It might be like a 1-900 number in the US (since the article is about services in the UK), in which case it has nothing to do with whether you want bells and whistles with your phone. The "text-based service that answers any question you can throw at it" could presumably have a dial-up branch as well (though it might require different personnel, since there is more interpersonal interaction in a phone call than a text exchange).
What about a service I think I saw advertised once where you can call, tell the person whatever information you can about where you are (city with street intersection, or maybe general region and how you got there if you don't even know what town you're in), and where you're trying to go, and they get directions for you? Are you saying that "isn't valuable enough to waste our money on"? Maybe not most of the time, but every once in a while that sort of service could make all the difference in the world, and might very well be worth a one-time $1, $5, or even $10 charge. This service might be usable from a land-line as well, but would be especially useful in situations where you don't have access to a land-line or don't have time to go find one, and therefore it leverages cell phones.
So, even if you insist on saying that cell phones don't need to do anything but make phone calls, that doesn't justify saying there's no service worth paying for that makes cell phones more useful. Simply limit yourself to services without a subscription fee that can be used via phone call.
As others have pointed out, I believe that's called "BitTorrent."
One key difference is that the international digital library GP was describing would probably pay for CDs and DVDs with money from taxes, where the current BitTorrent system is funded by through the RIAA/MIAA legal departments.
then there are even more convoluted cases like global warming. Whomever decides who and how many editors a global warming article has, gets to choose the slant.
I agree -- with global warming, there's debate about whether there's even any real debate, so deciding whether or not to include dissenting editors becomes a controversial decision itself. Shame, that.
[Muslim terrorists] already want to kill me just because of what I do or don't believe.
Um, no. From the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on "terrorism": Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are: intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated for a political goal (as opposed to a hate crime or "madman" attack), [and] deliberately target "non-combatants". Do you believe 9/11 was a hate crime? What about the violence in Iraq? Beirut? If you do, then I think you are very ignorant of the issue. It's not about hate, at least not primarily (I'll grant that hate has become a factor, but I think it's an inflammatory symptom that results in feedback, not a fundamental cause, of the violence). It's about trying to accomplish a political goal. No, the goal isn't to convince/scare us into becoming Muslim -- it's not hard to realize 9/11 would have the opposite effect, and bin Laden is not stupid.
So, give me a plan -- an intelligent one -- that allows me to remain me and deal with those people.
I can't lay out a complete plan, because it's a very complex issue. But, you could start by trying to understand their motivations and their perspective. You don't have to agree with them or convert and become them, but you can't hope to know how to deal with them until you understand them. If you are really so clueless about the motivations of Muslim terrorists, I can't possibly educate you in this post -- I can only suggest where to start educating yourself. The information isn't being hidden or suppressed, so it's not too hard to find if you're willing to go look; unfortunately, there's no real mainstream discussion of those motivations in the US, so you will have to go find the information yourself rather than just reading pre-digested news. A lot of it has to do with the Palestine/Israel conflict and our influence (past and present) there -- read some translations of bin Laden's statements, he's not trying to hide his motivation. And no, the Palestine/Israel conflict is not because "they hate the Jews". No matter who is right or wrong in that conflict, no matter what a practical solution would be, no matter what atrocities have been committed by which groups, anyone who has researched the history of the conflict even a little will realize there's far more behind it than blind hate.
HR: But there's nothing to say we still have to give you the job. If you want to be pedantic we'll hire you for 5 minutes and then fire you. Now do you want the new deal or not?
Employee: So, you'll pay $Y for relocation and spend how many person-hours filling out paperwork just to fire me after 5 minutes? I'll call your bluff -- I might get screwed, but so will you.
It's kinda like the tit-for-tat Prisoner's Dilemma strategy, except you can see the other player (the company) is planning to defect and punish them immediately.
Also, my current contract entitles me to 30 days notice between when they tell me my job will end and when I stop getting paid (though, at their discretion, I can be relieved of my duties and accress as soon as they give notice). If that or something similar (perhaps 2 weeks) is also "company policy", then they'd have to pay $Y and 1-2 paychecks without expecting much or any work in return if they fire you immediately (depending on the environment, it could easily take a month before training is completed and/or a new employee can be expected to be up to full productivity).
In order to capture as much information as a one megapixel image, this camera will have to take one million different measurements.
You mean "In order to capture as much information as a one megapixel image with no compression in the final image". In contrast, what this camera is doing is essentially only capturing as much information as is necessary to make the final, compressed image. It may be one megapixel in the sense of having ~1M pixels in the final image, but if it's been JPEG compressed to 80% then it doesn't need ~1M measurements.
Actually, wouldn't CO2 per person be a better metric than total CO2 per country, at least in some ways? I'm not saying that makes the numbers OK, just that a measure of the room for improvement in each country would probably be better served by per person data.
You attack the scientist for making nonsensical statements, but the problem is the dumbing down of news -- most mainstream news outlets like to provide predigested news, and often they screw it up or leave out important details. When you're reading an article on msnbc.com about a scientific report and you read something that doesn't make sense, don't assume it's the scientific report's fault; often it's the middleman.
Take a look at the official press release about the report regarding the "400 years" comment. The full title of the press release is very clear, and the first paragraph elaborates on the part you're questioning (emphasis mine):
Oops, sorry, I didn't see the OP because of it's modding... I was confused.
The OP used the word "steal" not "theft".
Actually, the OP used both words: "They don't steal anything, copyright infringement isn't theft."
The start of the reply was then "Sure it is.", which is clearly a response to the "copyright infringement isn't theft" part rather than the "They don't steal anything" part, but then the definition given is for "steal" rather than "theft" -- probably because the definitions for "theft" explicitly refer to "taking and carrying away" and/or "larceny", neither of which applies to "stealing" in the copyright-infringement sense of copying ideas or words.
This thread is fully of misdirection and confusion (whether intentional or not). Be careful who you are defending.
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