I read that report when it came out. Those safes look like cheapest of the cheap. That doesn't make their failures excusable but they certainly shouldn't be advertised as safes.
Trigger locks work fine. As does a higher quality safe. Will they stop the most determined of individuals? No but it's enough to stop young children.
We shouldn't need "smart" guns for things like children finding their parent's guns. We just need severe negligence laws for not properly securing your guns.
Most of those "do this and you'll be fine!" folks are generally out of touch. If you spend all day around smart engineers, it's pretty easy to think that most of them will be able to make a career shift fairly easily. But when you interact with people that aren't so sharp fairly regularly, it's overwhelmingly easy to conclude that those folks are shit out of luck. I think in the next 20 years, many of the repetitive simple jobs will be reduced such that we're going to have a hard time finding things for these newly unemployed people to do.
Couldn't we just use that $50B to improve efficiency across the US? Upgrade plants and transmission lines. Replace older appliances like fridges, air conditioners, water heaters. Change out windows and doors while adding insulation. I feel like that would be just as helpful and probably cost less than buying all the coal.
I imagine though that if companies want their games in a physical store (and for some reason they still do), they have to keep the prices the same. Why would I as a retailer be willing to make room for your products when you're selling them for less elsewhere and ensuring I can't get a sale?
Why is GPS being built in as the critical piece to this? I can lose GPS just driving around town in places. Does that mean no car knows where my car is? Why aren't these systems be based using the same inputs that I can use as a driver?
I agree with you about Lost but it has been much more plot oriented this season and I think rivals season 1 as the best season yet. Depending on how things go this season, it may change. But I don't recommend Lost to anyone to watch out of fear that it will do what the Sopranos did.
Another thing I really have a problem with is the fact that so few writers (and BSG is guilty of this one) have a general idea of what direction they're going to take from start to end.
Indeed. I was never satisfied with the whole "And they have a plan" because from what I could tell, there wasn't one. I really don't think it's hard to sit down and think about where the show will go as a whole and how many seasons it should cover. I think part of the problem is that they don't want to commit a ton of resources to a show that may not end up working based on viewership.
While 6 (as in Lost) is a bit much in comparison to BSG's 4 (I just think it's a bit trimmed in terms of fat), it still falls within my rule of 7 seasons max with human cast. Example: X-Files was pretty solid until Duchovny left and that was somewhere in season 6 to 8.
I've just grown tired of the overused mechanics in storytelling.
Shows like Burn Notice pull this off very well I think. Psych might be in that boat too. House attempts that a little bit and 24 doesn't much matter because it's often "intense" anyway. But on the whole, I think there is honestly too much competition/reality programming on cable television these days and a lot of it I just have to pick and choose since no one ever shows reruns much anymore since the dvr can only do so much. And with this competition comes the same story elements being constantly used. Shows like Law and Order just too predictable.
Abrams is tough. I've watched Lost, MI3, Joy Ride, Cloverfield, and Fringe. Lost, as we seem to agree, has it's problems. MI3 was enjoyable but it had references to Lost in the movie. Joy Ride is a generic horror movie that disappoints but I think Leelee Sobieski is hot. Cloverfield was an amazing concept (Blair Witch filming meets monster) and was a great movie to have seen in theaters, BUT all the trailers were incredibly vague on showing the monster - which I found to be laughable upon seeing and I understand why they did. Plus, there's a sequel planned and from what it sounds like, it could just be someone else's perspective. Fringe has similar elements to Lost that piss me off and some of the faux-science is just silly but I really wanted another X-Files and this attempts to fill the niche. Well, as long as it can dodge the Fox effect.
As for Star Trek, we will have to see but I think it's hard to take it seriously with Shaun of the Dead as Scotty. Based on the trailers it appears to be trendy action movie remake of a classic franchise. But if he can pull it off, I might cut him some slack.
I think it's disingenuous to sum up the entire show in the second to last paragraph in that frame. While being accurate to the second season (also the weakest of all of them), the show is a little more than just that. However, I agree with the premise that BSG will have had a better thought out ending than Lost.
A weakness of Lost is in that every episode has a cliffhanger element and has ruined the cliffhanger for me. But the biggest problem I see with Lost is that as the show as progressed, new nuggets provided continue to produce more conspiracy theory, more nonsense, and more distrust of everything you previously knew. Lost has become a show that I just accept what happens and don't really bother to think about the future anymore - something any producer should never want to happen to their show (I spent hours thinking about how BSG would end, I already forgot what the Lost episode is about this week). And sadly, this disinterest in cliffhangers and thinking has carried over to other shows I enjoy as well. Or perhaps I have become more critical of television as a whole.
All in all, the biggest problem I have is that JJ Abrams has become too big for himself. He loves referencing all his work in other works, which makes him come across as a major douche. And I find that his overuse of misdirection in his projects fails to make him the "master" of showmanship that he may think he is. But unfortunately Abrams has developed a big enough name for himself such that any project his name is associated with will draw people in and the flaws will be neglected until it becomes too apparent. Alas.
Being firmly entrenched in pre-established Stargate mythology, Stargate Universe follows the adventures of a team of explorers from present-day Earth after they find the Ancient spaceship Destiny. They must fend for themselves aboard the ship in the far reaches of the universe as they are unable to return to Earth.
So it's Stargate Voyager? I'm glad I quit watching a long time ago.
Where the hell do you live? Atlanta's ers is loaded with prostitutes. Err, women/men/trannies selling time to spend with them and any sex that happens is a decision between two adults. Erotic services is a digital spot on the corner for prostitutes. Sure there are legitimate services as well but don't lie about what is on the site.
Excellent points regarding Fallout 3. While I loved the game, I was disappointed in the options regarding the main quest. I haven't even started an evil character but I can see the problems that would exist. My main problem is that there are so few solutions to problems and characters seem not to respond to a variety of things as you play the game.
My biggest problem with the main story was having to find my father. I'm introduced to him in through about 20 minutes of gameplay and then I have to find him. And my only option for beating the game is to help him with Project Purity? To me, your father is on the same level as a deadbeat dad that leaves the family. I realize that the main gameplay is more important than the child aspect but at some point, you need to want to find him. What about players who don't care about their dad or helping him? What if you want to agree to go hunt your father down and bring him back to 101? Possibilities are endless.
My dream open game world would be something like Thief and set in a similar time frame. You take missions freely and based on what missions you take, different outcomes will happen. Start it in a large city with surrounding areas and progress to other cities and areas similar to the Bethesda approach. Train in weapons and skills, make connections and fences, bribe officials and security, elude security and investigators, etc. And instead of a major story arc, there are mission arcs that can overlap into a unique story experience.
Sadly I'm not a software guy so making these things a reality are outside my skill sets. I imagine I could think of some of the major challenges involved but it would be more interesting to get others perspectives on them.
In many cases, this was the premise in the Rainbow 6 and Ghost Recon series. Realistic military operations where poor planning cost you. If someone is wounded, their performance will be affected until they recover. If killed, unusable for the rest of the campaign. And it was fun. You could play the missions however you wanted and design different approaches to completing the objectives. In particular, I loved Raven-Shield even though the AI wasn't top notch on either tango or R6 sides.
Sadly, Ubisoft ran these franchises into the ground and made them unplayable on the PC in my opinion - R6 Vegas and Vegas 2. Mostly, it's a beef I have with joint PC and console support for FPS and the resulting interface and control scheme on PC. Additionally, the games were just lousy and lacked a lot of what the originals had that made them amazing. It essentially resulted in the end of this specialized genre of FPS.
1) B787 is 210-330pax. A380 is 500-800pax. The current AF1 is a B747, 400-525pax. B787 is already smaller than the current AF1. Undesirable based on the current trend of growing AF1. I would assume this is due to a combination of required equipment, addition of countermeasures, etc.
2) B787 is a two engine aircraft. AF1/B747/A380 are four engine aircraft. From a reliability, four engines are better as in the case of one engine out, you will fly further. Additional difficulties arise from suggesting that the B787 add two extra engines - results in a complete vehicle redesign.
Additionally, better fuel economy isn't a very descriptive metric. Total fuel burn? MPG? TSFC? LB/pax-NM? Granted I haven't really looked at comparisons of the two since they are intended to be used in different seat classes. Same goes for higher tech. You might want to specify that too.
It will be interesting to see what Boeing puts up on the board. It would be foolish for them not to. I think the 747-8 will be interesting (and their bid) as it shares some of the same 787 tech and similar parts to the 747. And with those considerations, I have a strong feeling that the 747-8 will likely win the competition. But I'll keep my eyes on the competition. Both companies will want this contract.
I heard from my adviser (who is well connected) that while these were all factors, realistically the government pays contractors a fixed percentage of the costs. Since this is the case, there is little incentive on the contractors to reduce costs since they take a hit in profits. He continues to try to push the Armed Services to change the way they pay the contractors with little success. That's really all I know since it's a story he told us one day but it sounds reasonable.
I pretty much only game on my PC these days. I built it two years ago and just upgraded the video card when I got Fallout 3. I think I've spend in all, $1,250 on the thing. Every decision I made was a tradeoff between performance and cost, where cost was the main driver. I just don't have the money to buy games (I grew out of piracy years ago) and get the best of the best hardware.
But bad news champ, that's not the argument the author is making. He's saying the gaming PC industry is dying. There is little reason to spend $3,000 on a system when, in many cases, it offers little improvement over a system costs half as much. Part of the reason that HP is likely dropping the niche is that it's a small money maker for them. I'm not surprised at all really. He even says if he can't see the merit, how can he sell it to my customers. He's talking about bringing the hardware market back down to earth and the impact it would have on the gaming market.
Once the software can start taking advantage of the extra hardware, I think we will see this market return. But I think the major driver in the industry pushing for requiring more horsepower are the publishers. They seem to think that prettier equals better game. Sure, Half-Life 2 is prettier than Doom/Wolf 3D but I would speculate the better aspect is due to the improvements to the gameplay experience.
Besides, I own a Wii. I haven't bought a game on it since Super Smash. Some of the games are fun and I like the controller scheme but I'm an adult damnit, I want some good adult themed games. Sure I could get a 360 or PS3 but there aren't enough games there that I'd be really interested in playing either. The only perks for the PS3 are Blu-ray, Little Big Planet, and GT5 - couple more killer apps and I might snag one down the road. I think the real problem is that with three consoles, all the good games get less recognition since there are few players that own all three systems. And if I have to pick and choose, then I make a choice and see how it goes. I'd say console gaming is dying as the market gets flooded with crappier games.
GP's point was that they are refused coverage based on a preexisting condition. They clearly want to play fair and pay for insurance such that they receive treatment. How is that fair to person who is refused health insurance simply because the insurance company views them a bad investment?
Your solution of "Sucks for you." doesn't balance the fact that insurance companies are fucking people over. So the GP should have the right to hold you at gun point and take everything on you? Perhaps that is whatever it takes to secure things for them. Same goes for people trying to score drugs and those who steal. Whatever it takes isn't going to be the best solution.
As for being able to afford drugs, have you seen the price of drugs without health insurance? One of my brother's bipolar meds is $300 a refill. It's only $200 if you have a AAA card (WTF??). And $100 with insurance. These are drugs required to make sure he functions versus being in a manic depressive state.
Being in a manic depressive state will not allow him to work harder. GP's symptoms do not seem to allow for him to work harder. Suck it up champ and work through isn't a reasonable solution here. Neither is medical costs driving people to bankruptcy. Something has to be done about the exploding cost of healthcare or no one but the rich will be able to afford it.
You're getting to the crux of the problem but missing the real problem. NASA hires contractors and government employees. Contractors are paid more but essentially the first to go. Government employees are almost impossible to fire. Typical practice is to reassign undesirable people to undesirable positions such that they leave on their own.
This is the problem with many government positions. Once you realize you can collect a paycheck and not work, you could just sit on your ass. Those folks that do this know they can get away with it. How do you fix it? Well if I had that answer, I'd be offering services to governments across the board.
Another challenge with NASA is that motivation is typically changed every 4 or 8 years by the new President. So unless there is an agreement that certain things need to be funded, programs and directives often change. My lab got hit hard by Bush's new plan for space. Although it looks neat when your lab is funded heavily by Aeronautics and the Space division gets money from all three branches instead of increasing the budget, you don't tend to like it. It's hard to stay motivated when your work gets redirected and what you were hired to do isn't what you're doing.
Yay! Another AE on the site. Which center do you work for? Which school? Granted the school could give away the center. I know Langley does some CFD (based on some presentations at GSRP) but I assume pretty much every center does - JPL and Glenn use it I'm sure.
I was in a similar boat; I liked software and learned C++ in high school but wasn't sure if I wanted to make a career out of just software. Funny enough I came into school wanting to work on next-gen space craft (Constellation and on) but ended up getting a undergrad research position that did aeronautic technology work with Langley (UEET, VSP) and got interested in commercial aircraft.
I'm hat tricking my degrees at Georgia Tech - BS 06, MS 07, PhD hopefully by 10 (quals this Fall). I currently work on aircraft performance for an FAA contract using the NASA code FLOPS. Ended up learning FORTRAN out of it and I've talked with the guy that wrote it.
So I checked out their website http://www.getoutdoorsgeorgia.org/ and overall I'm pretty impressed with the idea. I think this is a good thing. If state park information is located in one place, perhaps more people might take advantage of the facilities.
Looking at the disc golf section though, I'm kind of disappointed that the only information is solely for state parks. Living in Atlanta, I know of a few courses around that aren't state parks but county parks. They are also much closer than 30+ miles of the state parks.
I'm hoping that this is simply due to an early start and more information will get put in as counties might get online. But if not, I think they're missing a big opportunity for more information and getting people more involved at a local level. But perhaps they are simply looking for the extra revenue from the parks since most of the local parks are free access.
My graduate school adviser (in aerospace engineering) wants people to do this with ANYTHING. If you can't explain to someone what you do in an elevator speech, why are you being funded? If you can't explain how a jet engine works in elevator speech, then maybe you don't know how it actually works. Etc.
I think it's really an interesting approach to life. It cuts out the opportunity to cut out the bullshit and shows who knows what and who doesn't. If only business was so simple....
Funny enough, I almost had an incident about a year ago with the current bananas. I was walking home from campus and my foot slipped out from under me. I almost took a spill but managed to regain composure. Turns out it was a decomposing banana that the trash guys had happened to knock onto the ground.
I had to sit down because I was laughing so hard. I never expected to ever slip on a banana peel in my life time. I laughed ever harder when I remembered I saw the banana in the morning walking to campus and thought 'Silly banana peels. You just aren't so effective of a threat anymore.' Watch out - those guys are a busted ankle or hip just lying in wait.
Am I supposed to be excited that SF IV is being released OR should I be upset that it's not on Wii? That's actually a serious question. No offense to the editors here but which bias am I supposed to be seeing. Usually you guys throw in a little question that makes it obvious - as much as I hate it at times. Or are we supposed to reminisce about playing SF2 growing up?
I'm not really interested in either case. I loved SF2 and worked my way through mastering every character. But fighting games were a blast when I was young and I've moved on and lost interest in them. Beyond Super Smash, do they even sell well anymore? Regarding the Wii, I'm not surprised. The hardware makes sacrifices so you'll miss some games due to this. I knew that getting a Wii so I just don't see why this is a story in that regard.
I think it depends on a variety of factors: fuel prices, aviation system capacity, rail system capacity, etc. I just did a couple of ticketing comparisons (below) just to see the pros and cons. Clearly, air travel continues to win as I can fly pretty much whenever I want against the one or two rail offerings departing at late hours.
Why is that though? Has the rail system (with regards to people moving) simply died due to neglect? Noise/speed requirements as trains can't travel so fast in urban areas? Are there too many stops along the way to make it worth it?
I think a rail hub system combined with a bus spoke system could make a very effective travel scheme for short range transportation. Things I don't know are the developments and improvements to the rail industry and their operations.
For reference:
I looked on Amtrak - $556 for ATL to LAX for 70+ hours vs Delta's $436 for under 5 hours.
Shorter trip - ATL to DC. $156 for 14 hours vs $144 for under 2.
For what it's worth, I'd prefer the aerospace industry to continue to boom such that I can have a job when I graduate. But such was the same plight for the blacksmith and his industry.
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I read that report when it came out. Those safes look like cheapest of the cheap. That doesn't make their failures excusable but they certainly shouldn't be advertised as safes.
Trigger locks work fine. As does a higher quality safe. Will they stop the most determined of individuals? No but it's enough to stop young children.
We shouldn't need "smart" guns for things like children finding their parent's guns. We just need severe negligence laws for not properly securing your guns.
Most of those "do this and you'll be fine!" folks are generally out of touch. If you spend all day around smart engineers, it's pretty easy to think that most of them will be able to make a career shift fairly easily. But when you interact with people that aren't so sharp fairly regularly, it's overwhelmingly easy to conclude that those folks are shit out of luck. I think in the next 20 years, many of the repetitive simple jobs will be reduced such that we're going to have a hard time finding things for these newly unemployed people to do.
Couldn't we just use that $50B to improve efficiency across the US? Upgrade plants and transmission lines. Replace older appliances like fridges, air conditioners, water heaters. Change out windows and doors while adding insulation. I feel like that would be just as helpful and probably cost less than buying all the coal.
I imagine though that if companies want their games in a physical store (and for some reason they still do), they have to keep the prices the same. Why would I as a retailer be willing to make room for your products when you're selling them for less elsewhere and ensuring I can't get a sale?
Why is GPS being built in as the critical piece to this? I can lose GPS just driving around town in places. Does that mean no car knows where my car is? Why aren't these systems be based using the same inputs that I can use as a driver?
Another thing I really have a problem with is the fact that so few writers (and BSG is guilty of this one) have a general idea of what direction they're going to take from start to end.
Indeed. I was never satisfied with the whole "And they have a plan" because from what I could tell, there wasn't one. I really don't think it's hard to sit down and think about where the show will go as a whole and how many seasons it should cover. I think part of the problem is that they don't want to commit a ton of resources to a show that may not end up working based on viewership.
While 6 (as in Lost) is a bit much in comparison to BSG's 4 (I just think it's a bit trimmed in terms of fat), it still falls within my rule of 7 seasons max with human cast. Example: X-Files was pretty solid until Duchovny left and that was somewhere in season 6 to 8.
I've just grown tired of the overused mechanics in storytelling.
Shows like Burn Notice pull this off very well I think. Psych might be in that boat too. House attempts that a little bit and 24 doesn't much matter because it's often "intense" anyway. But on the whole, I think there is honestly too much competition/reality programming on cable television these days and a lot of it I just have to pick and choose since no one ever shows reruns much anymore since the dvr can only do so much. And with this competition comes the same story elements being constantly used. Shows like Law and Order just too predictable.
Abrams is tough. I've watched Lost, MI3, Joy Ride, Cloverfield, and Fringe. Lost, as we seem to agree, has it's problems. MI3 was enjoyable but it had references to Lost in the movie. Joy Ride is a generic horror movie that disappoints but I think Leelee Sobieski is hot. Cloverfield was an amazing concept (Blair Witch filming meets monster) and was a great movie to have seen in theaters, BUT all the trailers were incredibly vague on showing the monster - which I found to be laughable upon seeing and I understand why they did. Plus, there's a sequel planned and from what it sounds like, it could just be someone else's perspective. Fringe has similar elements to Lost that piss me off and some of the faux-science is just silly but I really wanted another X-Files and this attempts to fill the niche. Well, as long as it can dodge the Fox effect.
As for Star Trek, we will have to see but I think it's hard to take it seriously with Shaun of the Dead as Scotty. Based on the trailers it appears to be trendy action movie remake of a classic franchise. But if he can pull it off, I might cut him some slack.
I think it's disingenuous to sum up the entire show in the second to last paragraph in that frame. While being accurate to the second season (also the weakest of all of them), the show is a little more than just that. However, I agree with the premise that BSG will have had a better thought out ending than Lost.
A weakness of Lost is in that every episode has a cliffhanger element and has ruined the cliffhanger for me. But the biggest problem I see with Lost is that as the show as progressed, new nuggets provided continue to produce more conspiracy theory, more nonsense, and more distrust of everything you previously knew. Lost has become a show that I just accept what happens and don't really bother to think about the future anymore - something any producer should never want to happen to their show (I spent hours thinking about how BSG would end, I already forgot what the Lost episode is about this week). And sadly, this disinterest in cliffhangers and thinking has carried over to other shows I enjoy as well. Or perhaps I have become more critical of television as a whole.
All in all, the biggest problem I have is that JJ Abrams has become too big for himself. He loves referencing all his work in other works, which makes him come across as a major douche. And I find that his overuse of misdirection in his projects fails to make him the "master" of showmanship that he may think he is. But unfortunately Abrams has developed a big enough name for himself such that any project his name is associated with will draw people in and the flaws will be neglected until it becomes too apparent. Alas.
Being firmly entrenched in pre-established Stargate mythology, Stargate Universe follows the adventures of a team of explorers from present-day Earth after they find the Ancient spaceship Destiny. They must fend for themselves aboard the ship in the far reaches of the universe as they are unable to return to Earth.
So it's Stargate Voyager? I'm glad I quit watching a long time ago.
Flying albatross - 1w5m. Triple penetration plus she jacks off the other two. Allegedly she will look like an albatross in flight.
I only know because I ran an Assassins game where every code name was sex term: donkey punch, hoover maneuver, wolfbagging, etc.
Where the hell do you live? Atlanta's ers is loaded with prostitutes. Err, women/men/trannies selling time to spend with them and any sex that happens is a decision between two adults. Erotic services is a digital spot on the corner for prostitutes. Sure there are legitimate services as well but don't lie about what is on the site.
Excellent points regarding Fallout 3. While I loved the game, I was disappointed in the options regarding the main quest. I haven't even started an evil character but I can see the problems that would exist. My main problem is that there are so few solutions to problems and characters seem not to respond to a variety of things as you play the game.
My biggest problem with the main story was having to find my father. I'm introduced to him in through about 20 minutes of gameplay and then I have to find him. And my only option for beating the game is to help him with Project Purity? To me, your father is on the same level as a deadbeat dad that leaves the family. I realize that the main gameplay is more important than the child aspect but at some point, you need to want to find him. What about players who don't care about their dad or helping him? What if you want to agree to go hunt your father down and bring him back to 101? Possibilities are endless.
My dream open game world would be something like Thief and set in a similar time frame. You take missions freely and based on what missions you take, different outcomes will happen. Start it in a large city with surrounding areas and progress to other cities and areas similar to the Bethesda approach. Train in weapons and skills, make connections and fences, bribe officials and security, elude security and investigators, etc. And instead of a major story arc, there are mission arcs that can overlap into a unique story experience.
Sadly I'm not a software guy so making these things a reality are outside my skill sets. I imagine I could think of some of the major challenges involved but it would be more interesting to get others perspectives on them.
In many cases, this was the premise in the Rainbow 6 and Ghost Recon series. Realistic military operations where poor planning cost you. If someone is wounded, their performance will be affected until they recover. If killed, unusable for the rest of the campaign. And it was fun. You could play the missions however you wanted and design different approaches to completing the objectives. In particular, I loved Raven-Shield even though the AI wasn't top notch on either tango or R6 sides.
Sadly, Ubisoft ran these franchises into the ground and made them unplayable on the PC in my opinion - R6 Vegas and Vegas 2. Mostly, it's a beef I have with joint PC and console support for FPS and the resulting interface and control scheme on PC. Additionally, the games were just lousy and lacked a lot of what the originals had that made them amazing. It essentially resulted in the end of this specialized genre of FPS.
I wouldn't. Here are a couple of reasons so.
1) B787 is 210-330pax. A380 is 500-800pax. The current AF1 is a B747, 400-525pax. B787 is already smaller than the current AF1. Undesirable based on the current trend of growing AF1. I would assume this is due to a combination of required equipment, addition of countermeasures, etc.
2) B787 is a two engine aircraft. AF1/B747/A380 are four engine aircraft. From a reliability, four engines are better as in the case of one engine out, you will fly further. Additional difficulties arise from suggesting that the B787 add two extra engines - results in a complete vehicle redesign.
Additionally, better fuel economy isn't a very descriptive metric. Total fuel burn? MPG? TSFC? LB/pax-NM? Granted I haven't really looked at comparisons of the two since they are intended to be used in different seat classes. Same goes for higher tech. You might want to specify that too.
It will be interesting to see what Boeing puts up on the board. It would be foolish for them not to. I think the 747-8 will be interesting (and their bid) as it shares some of the same 787 tech and similar parts to the 747. And with those considerations, I have a strong feeling that the 747-8 will likely win the competition. But I'll keep my eyes on the competition. Both companies will want this contract.
I heard from my adviser (who is well connected) that while these were all factors, realistically the government pays contractors a fixed percentage of the costs. Since this is the case, there is little incentive on the contractors to reduce costs since they take a hit in profits. He continues to try to push the Armed Services to change the way they pay the contractors with little success. That's really all I know since it's a story he told us one day but it sounds reasonable.
I pretty much only game on my PC these days. I built it two years ago and just upgraded the video card when I got Fallout 3. I think I've spend in all, $1,250 on the thing. Every decision I made was a tradeoff between performance and cost, where cost was the main driver. I just don't have the money to buy games (I grew out of piracy years ago) and get the best of the best hardware.
But bad news champ, that's not the argument the author is making. He's saying the gaming PC industry is dying. There is little reason to spend $3,000 on a system when, in many cases, it offers little improvement over a system costs half as much. Part of the reason that HP is likely dropping the niche is that it's a small money maker for them. I'm not surprised at all really. He even says if he can't see the merit, how can he sell it to my customers. He's talking about bringing the hardware market back down to earth and the impact it would have on the gaming market.
Once the software can start taking advantage of the extra hardware, I think we will see this market return. But I think the major driver in the industry pushing for requiring more horsepower are the publishers. They seem to think that prettier equals better game. Sure, Half-Life 2 is prettier than Doom/Wolf 3D but I would speculate the better aspect is due to the improvements to the gameplay experience.
Besides, I own a Wii. I haven't bought a game on it since Super Smash. Some of the games are fun and I like the controller scheme but I'm an adult damnit, I want some good adult themed games. Sure I could get a 360 or PS3 but there aren't enough games there that I'd be really interested in playing either. The only perks for the PS3 are Blu-ray, Little Big Planet, and GT5 - couple more killer apps and I might snag one down the road. I think the real problem is that with three consoles, all the good games get less recognition since there are few players that own all three systems. And if I have to pick and choose, then I make a choice and see how it goes. I'd say console gaming is dying as the market gets flooded with crappier games.
GP's point was that they are refused coverage based on a preexisting condition. They clearly want to play fair and pay for insurance such that they receive treatment. How is that fair to person who is refused health insurance simply because the insurance company views them a bad investment?
Your solution of "Sucks for you." doesn't balance the fact that insurance companies are fucking people over. So the GP should have the right to hold you at gun point and take everything on you? Perhaps that is whatever it takes to secure things for them. Same goes for people trying to score drugs and those who steal. Whatever it takes isn't going to be the best solution.
As for being able to afford drugs, have you seen the price of drugs without health insurance? One of my brother's bipolar meds is $300 a refill. It's only $200 if you have a AAA card (WTF??). And $100 with insurance. These are drugs required to make sure he functions versus being in a manic depressive state.
Being in a manic depressive state will not allow him to work harder. GP's symptoms do not seem to allow for him to work harder. Suck it up champ and work through isn't a reasonable solution here. Neither is medical costs driving people to bankruptcy. Something has to be done about the exploding cost of healthcare or no one but the rich will be able to afford it.
VP breaks a tie resulting 101 votes.
You're getting to the crux of the problem but missing the real problem. NASA hires contractors and government employees. Contractors are paid more but essentially the first to go. Government employees are almost impossible to fire. Typical practice is to reassign undesirable people to undesirable positions such that they leave on their own.
This is the problem with many government positions. Once you realize you can collect a paycheck and not work, you could just sit on your ass. Those folks that do this know they can get away with it. How do you fix it? Well if I had that answer, I'd be offering services to governments across the board.
Another challenge with NASA is that motivation is typically changed every 4 or 8 years by the new President. So unless there is an agreement that certain things need to be funded, programs and directives often change. My lab got hit hard by Bush's new plan for space. Although it looks neat when your lab is funded heavily by Aeronautics and the Space division gets money from all three branches instead of increasing the budget, you don't tend to like it. It's hard to stay motivated when your work gets redirected and what you were hired to do isn't what you're doing.
Yay! Another AE on the site. Which center do you work for? Which school? Granted the school could give away the center. I know Langley does some CFD (based on some presentations at GSRP) but I assume pretty much every center does - JPL and Glenn use it I'm sure.
I was in a similar boat; I liked software and learned C++ in high school but wasn't sure if I wanted to make a career out of just software. Funny enough I came into school wanting to work on next-gen space craft (Constellation and on) but ended up getting a undergrad research position that did aeronautic technology work with Langley (UEET, VSP) and got interested in commercial aircraft.
I'm hat tricking my degrees at Georgia Tech - BS 06, MS 07, PhD hopefully by 10 (quals this Fall). I currently work on aircraft performance for an FAA contract using the NASA code FLOPS. Ended up learning FORTRAN out of it and I've talked with the guy that wrote it.
So I checked out their website http://www.getoutdoorsgeorgia.org/ and overall I'm pretty impressed with the idea. I think this is a good thing. If state park information is located in one place, perhaps more people might take advantage of the facilities.
Looking at the disc golf section though, I'm kind of disappointed that the only information is solely for state parks. Living in Atlanta, I know of a few courses around that aren't state parks but county parks. They are also much closer than 30+ miles of the state parks.
I'm hoping that this is simply due to an early start and more information will get put in as counties might get online. But if not, I think they're missing a big opportunity for more information and getting people more involved at a local level. But perhaps they are simply looking for the extra revenue from the parks since most of the local parks are free access.
My graduate school adviser (in aerospace engineering) wants people to do this with ANYTHING. If you can't explain to someone what you do in an elevator speech, why are you being funded? If you can't explain how a jet engine works in elevator speech, then maybe you don't know how it actually works. Etc.
I think it's really an interesting approach to life. It cuts out the opportunity to cut out the bullshit and shows who knows what and who doesn't. If only business was so simple....
Funny enough, I almost had an incident about a year ago with the current bananas. I was walking home from campus and my foot slipped out from under me. I almost took a spill but managed to regain composure. Turns out it was a decomposing banana that the trash guys had happened to knock onto the ground.
I had to sit down because I was laughing so hard. I never expected to ever slip on a banana peel in my life time. I laughed ever harder when I remembered I saw the banana in the morning walking to campus and thought 'Silly banana peels. You just aren't so effective of a threat anymore.' Watch out - those guys are a busted ankle or hip just lying in wait.
Am I supposed to be excited that SF IV is being released OR should I be upset that it's not on Wii? That's actually a serious question. No offense to the editors here but which bias am I supposed to be seeing. Usually you guys throw in a little question that makes it obvious - as much as I hate it at times. Or are we supposed to reminisce about playing SF2 growing up?
I'm not really interested in either case. I loved SF2 and worked my way through mastering every character. But fighting games were a blast when I was young and I've moved on and lost interest in them. Beyond Super Smash, do they even sell well anymore? Regarding the Wii, I'm not surprised. The hardware makes sacrifices so you'll miss some games due to this. I knew that getting a Wii so I just don't see why this is a story in that regard.
I think it depends on a variety of factors: fuel prices, aviation system capacity, rail system capacity, etc. I just did a couple of ticketing comparisons (below) just to see the pros and cons. Clearly, air travel continues to win as I can fly pretty much whenever I want against the one or two rail offerings departing at late hours.
Why is that though? Has the rail system (with regards to people moving) simply died due to neglect? Noise/speed requirements as trains can't travel so fast in urban areas? Are there too many stops along the way to make it worth it?
I think a rail hub system combined with a bus spoke system could make a very effective travel scheme for short range transportation. Things I don't know are the developments and improvements to the rail industry and their operations.
For reference:
I looked on Amtrak - $556 for ATL to LAX for 70+ hours vs Delta's $436 for under 5 hours.
Shorter trip - ATL to DC. $156 for 14 hours vs $144 for under 2.
For what it's worth, I'd prefer the aerospace industry to continue to boom such that I can have a job when I graduate. But such was the same plight for the blacksmith and his industry.