For me, death in a game is a chance to get a brief pause in the action, and reflect on my experience for that spawn period. I can joke with friends, curse, and plan what to do in my next 'life'.
In fact, I would say that death can be considered part of the game.
When I'm playing a game like TF2 I don't mind the death scenes. It fits the feel of the game. I identified DoD because it was one of the more 'accurate' FPS games around at the time. Before I cut back on FPS games, I tried Red Orchestra and liked that one alot.
I do love TF2, but it is definately a world apart from games like Red Orchestra.
Camper. Real snipers are trained to take the shot then move immediately to another position to avoid being detected.
I typically do, but 'Real snipers' aren't faced with an opponent who can resurrect themselves within 30 seconds and reach your old position in another 15.
My preference has less to do with playing the game as a sniper (my least favorite role actually) and more to do with playing the game as a commander and being able to hide my team's movements from the opposing team. Unfortunately that isn' really possible against an organized team unless you are at a LAN party and strictly enforce rules regarding 'speaking with the dead'.
I've always preferred servers and games (DoD for example) that provided an instant 'blackout' effect on death.
It always annoyed me to spend a great deal of time moving my character into a unique hiding spot, only to have someone suicide rush me after my position was betrayed by the after-death features that pointed directly to my location.
But pirating copyright music via p2p etc is OK because nobody got hurt right.
Not the same thing. This company used his images for profit. What would have been analogous to file sharing might be if the defendant had photocopied the image, put it on his wall for his own personal enjoyment, and given some copies to friends for the same purpose.
Another example would be if someone in the corporation had taken the image and posted it on their section of the corporate website and forgotten about it.
Then, the example would continue with the owner of the photo requesting 2-3 months gross income from the corporation. If they didn't pay up the 2-3 months income, then he would sue them for so much money that it would put the corporation into the red for 20-30 years.
That is what it would look like if the situations were actually reversed.
And that is why it is very important to ground the fleet right now.
By grounding the fleet, it doesn't mean that we are somehow left without access to these aircraft. If the need for one of these aircraft comes up, then they can be launched very quickly.
Unlike some other aircraft, these fly directly from the US to the target (refueling on the way). What this means is that unlike a tank, it doesn't have to be in the theater to remain 'ready'.
Grounding these aircraft was a good idea, since as acherrington pointed out, we don't actually have that many of them.
Do you have any information on why this is the case? Is it the speed of the tests? Are they conducting something that is very different from the other side? Or are we talking about slight variations that result in radically different results?
I'm curious. (and I want a diesel engine here in the states)
Set the stand on the floor, it has an arm that goes up to 50% of the height of the lamp and attaches to the back of the lamp. The lamp would be supported by the stand and wouldn't actually touch the floor. When the weight reaches the bottom, simply flip the lamp over by applying force to the upper portion. You could add in little catch or ratchet points so it would be easy to do.
Not sure how evolution is classified anymore, but that gravity exists is indeed a fact. The only question we still have is WHY it exists, as in what causes it.
That's one of the tricks when using 'gravity' as part of a discussion regarding 'evolution'. The existance of both is proven. The 'why' of gravity has not yet been proven. But that is a MUCH different 'why' than the 'why' of evolution.
Gravitation is much closer to mathematics than evolution. I'm sure we can agree that if we are to discover the 'why' of gravitation it will be relatively neat. (Not simple, but neat in the sense that we will be able to say that this does this which causes gravity)
Yet evolution, is a much 'messier' thing to explain. It has a lot of potential causes that feed into the overall theory. Random mutation, natural selection, directed selection such as domesticated animals. Each of these may or may not play a role in any one creature's evolutionary path.
So evolution, when compared to gravity is always going to be a bit murkier of a discussion even if you remove the religious angle from it completely.
He said another 6 to 7 million years beyond the current estimate of 5 to 6 million years bringing the date of the actual split to somewhere between 11-13 million years ago.
I don't know if it is true or not, but that's where he got the 100% from.
I suppose it depends on how much it drops for those larger files. If it goes from 10Mbps to 1 Mbps I could see the point, but if it only drops to something lik 7 or 8 Mbps I think that's a reasonable rate. We also have to remember that this is a residential connection. It is designed for the typical residential user. That type of person will download a lot of smaller files regularly. The result is that the web browsing will seem very fast. ISO downloads? Not so much.
I wonder how it deals with P2P or a multi-streams of data. What if I have 10x 30Kbps streams running simultaneously would that aggregate and trigger the throttle down mechanism?
I don't know if I agree with that assessment. It seems to me as if H. Ergaster simply progressed as far as his brain would allow, and no farther. A simple hand axe was just the apex of his ability. Looking at H. Ergaster makes me rather worried about the future of our species...after all, we haven't been around nearly as long. What if we run up against an innate limit in our brains, and our technology can proceed no further?
I think that it helps illustrate what is actually a non-distinct separation between H. Ergaster (thanks for identifying that) and modern humans.
If it were the case that H. Ergaster simply reached the limits of their mental capacity, we should have seen other examples of tool use. We should be able to find species which developed tools a step or two beyond H. Ergaster. Instead what we see is that there is a type of technological explosion beyond that point.
I would argue that our intellect has reached a sort of 'critical mass' with regard to its capacity to manufacture tools of increasing complexity and advancement. While we may reach plateaus, our intellect allows us to circumvent artificial limits and develop new technologies. Even now, we are inventing tools that help us create tools that are beyond our physical limitations (CAD, genetic simulations, etc).
In contrast, H. Ergaster invented and used the stone axe, and almost a half million years later was still using the same stone axe. In a similar amount of time, modern humans have progressed from the stone axe, to sending robotic explorers to other planets.
Without a doubt I think it would be a possiblity, but I'm not sure what changes would have to be made to the smelting process to produce something usable. While metallurgy isn't my area of expertise I can work through the process a bit to see where some problems would occur with an underwater smelting operation.
It isn't sufficient to just have a heat source to smelt, if you just heat up the ore you would end up with melted ore. There is actually a chemical reaction taking place, mainly it is the use of carbon to bind the Oxygen in the form of CO2. The basic reaction is Ore+Carbon+energy = Metal + CO2.
While it would be possible to introduce an ore and carbon to a heat source (500 degrees should be sufficient for Tin or Lead) The water vapor and CO2 being produced would result in an unstable environment. It would be like a lot of little explosions going off while you are trying to direct the flow of a liquid.
This would assume that they would actually KNOW that they could smelt in the first place. For humans, it was likely that our ancestors built a campfire on a lead ore (which you really can't tell is lead ore just by looking at it w/o a knowledge of chemistry). The carbon from the campfire and the higher temperature is just right to smelt lead/tin. Repeat several thousand times and eventually an intelligent human figured out that they could repeat the process.
Underwater, campfires don't happen very often. (That just raises further questions!)
While tool use is certainly probable in an aquatic species that evolved intelligence, I would doubt that any such species would progress past the stone age in terms of technology. However, they may evolve a very advanced society, afterall, the Ancient Egyptians and Mayan cultures also were just progressing out of the stone-age yet they had highly advanced societies.
Why would they be limited to the stone age? If you assume that they are fully aquatic and not amphibian-like then they would lack one of the major requirements for progression beyond the stone age. Fire. Granted I may be taking a short sighted view of this, but without easy access to fire, it would be VERY difficult for such a society to develop anything beyond basic stone age tools.
I suppose it would be possible for them to utilize a volcano as a source of energy to smelt metals. But I would imagine that smelting in an aquatic environment would have some severe drawbacks. (even if we ignore the problem associated with oxidation of metals)
The probability for intelligence seems to me to be the biggest hurdle. That humans are intelligent at all seems nothing more than a genetic fluke, and not a guaranteed outcome.
However, given our understanding for life, and how it evolved, it would seem that complex life forms would probably NOT be rare at all.
The biggest hurdles for human-like intelligence probably includes the following:
1. Self replicating molecules. I'm not sure how precise the conditions for getting life started are, but it probably isn't something we would see very often. 2. Conditions remaining stable for those molecules for a very long time. 3. Symbiotic relationships developing between organisms. (requirement for multi-cellular life) 4. The creativity mutation. (for lack of a better term.)
In between, it seems that the process of natural selection would be the driving factor, but those 4 items listed are probably the most important 'leaps'.
With regard to the creativity mutation: As I recall, there was a proto-human homonid that DID use tools, but never developed on that tool (The stone axe they used at the beginning of their existance was the same stone axe that they used at the end of their existance) And that period of time wasn't short, something on the order of millions of years where they used the exact stone axe. While they were using a tool, there was no real thought behind it. In that respect, it seems that it was much like a spider's web, a very precise tool for survival but instinct rather than a developed idea.
Following my job, I unfortunately have moved into a county where it is not possible for an average person to get a license to carry. I still have the license to carry from my previous residence, but this county will not grant one.
I easily passed the background check for my concealed carry permit in my last state, yet here even though I pass, they don't like my rationale (self defense is not justified in their eyes)
So the license is denied because they don't grant licenses. Now what?
When I was at the USAFA I had to use the alternate BMI measurements because of those damned requirements. I was short. 5'7" 180 lbs. That listed me as overweight, so I had to do the body fat calcuation option. It measured me at 6-7% body fat.
But looking at the requirements now, you are correct that if someone can't meet the AF requirements that they probably should budget an hour or two for exercise in your daily schedule. You only need to have less than 20-24% bodyfat to pass. More than that IS pretty unhealthy for a male.
I worked for a gentleman that was a Captain in the Navy. This guy was older than dirt, but surprised the hell out of me with how computer literate he was. He was fit, active, intelligent and an adept computer user. You might say so what, there are lots of older people who are in shape, intelligent and know their way around the keyboard.
He was 94 years old when he passed on and taught me plenty about computers. He was already 33 years old when ENIAC was unveiled. He was working until his last days because he enjoyed it so much. Perhaps the amusing part was at the funeral we had remind ourselves that we were shocked at his death at 94 due to his clear mind, and active lifestyle. If you met him, you wouldn't have thought he was a day older than 70. I'd say if someone is shocked at your passing at age 94, then you probably were doing it right.
That is because most of us realize that there is no reason that the reason an asprin at a hospital costs $22 each is because the costs of our healthcare has been so obsfucated that none of us even know what a fair price for healthcare is nowadays. However, we do know that if you take our current healthcare problems, and try to bandaid on a fix like national healthcare, we will end up with some beast of a system that costs more and provides less.
There is a fix to our healthcare problems, unfortunately nothing I've seen so far begins to address the real problems.
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For me, death in a game is a chance to get a brief pause in the action, and reflect on my experience for that spawn period. I can joke with friends, curse, and plan what to do in my next 'life'.
In fact, I would say that death can be considered part of the game.
When I'm playing a game like TF2 I don't mind the death scenes. It fits the feel of the game. I identified DoD because it was one of the more 'accurate' FPS games around at the time. Before I cut back on FPS games, I tried Red Orchestra and liked that one alot.
I do love TF2, but it is definately a world apart from games like Red Orchestra.
Camper. Real snipers are trained to take the shot then move immediately to another position to avoid being detected.
I typically do, but 'Real snipers' aren't faced with an opponent who can resurrect themselves within 30 seconds and reach your old position in another 15.
My preference has less to do with playing the game as a sniper (my least favorite role actually) and more to do with playing the game as a commander and being able to hide my team's movements from the opposing team. Unfortunately that isn' really possible against an organized team unless you are at a LAN party and strictly enforce rules regarding 'speaking with the dead'.
I've always preferred servers and games (DoD for example) that provided an instant 'blackout' effect on death.
It always annoyed me to spend a great deal of time moving my character into a unique hiding spot, only to have someone suicide rush me after my position was betrayed by the after-death features that pointed directly to my location.
But pirating copyright music via p2p etc is OK because nobody got hurt right.
Not the same thing. This company used his images for profit. What would have been analogous to file sharing might be if the defendant had photocopied the image, put it on his wall for his own personal enjoyment, and given some copies to friends for the same purpose.
Another example would be if someone in the corporation had taken the image and posted it on their section of the corporate website and forgotten about it.
Then, the example would continue with the owner of the photo requesting 2-3 months gross income from the corporation. If they didn't pay up the 2-3 months income, then he would sue them for so much money that it would put the corporation into the red for 20-30 years.
That is what it would look like if the situations were actually reversed.
And that is why it is very important to ground the fleet right now.
By grounding the fleet, it doesn't mean that we are somehow left without access to these aircraft. If the need for one of these aircraft comes up, then they can be launched very quickly.
Unlike some other aircraft, these fly directly from the US to the target (refueling on the way). What this means is that unlike a tank, it doesn't have to be in the theater to remain 'ready'.
Grounding these aircraft was a good idea, since as acherrington pointed out, we don't actually have that many of them.
Do you have any information on why this is the case? Is it the speed of the tests? Are they conducting something that is very different from the other side? Or are we talking about slight variations that result in radically different results?
I'm curious. (and I want a diesel engine here in the states)
If it costs $500, then the demand will probably not be as huge as you imagine.
Give it a stand.
Set the stand on the floor, it has an arm that goes up to 50% of the height of the lamp and attaches to the back of the lamp. The lamp would be supported by the stand and wouldn't actually touch the floor. When the weight reaches the bottom, simply flip the lamp over by applying force to the upper portion. You could add in little catch or ratchet points so it would be easy to do.
Not sure how evolution is classified anymore, but that gravity exists is indeed a fact. The only question we still have is WHY it exists, as in what causes it.
That's one of the tricks when using 'gravity' as part of a discussion regarding 'evolution'. The existance of both is proven. The 'why' of gravity has not yet been proven. But that is a MUCH different 'why' than the 'why' of evolution.
Gravitation is much closer to mathematics than evolution. I'm sure we can agree that if we are to discover the 'why' of gravitation it will be relatively neat. (Not simple, but neat in the sense that we will be able to say that this does this which causes gravity)
Yet evolution, is a much 'messier' thing to explain. It has a lot of potential causes that feed into the overall theory. Random mutation, natural selection, directed selection such as domesticated animals. Each of these may or may not play a role in any one creature's evolutionary path.
So evolution, when compared to gravity is always going to be a bit murkier of a discussion even if you remove the religious angle from it completely.
He said another 6 to 7 million years beyond the current estimate of 5 to 6 million years bringing the date of the actual split to somewhere between 11-13 million years ago.
I don't know if it is true or not, but that's where he got the 100% from.
I suppose it depends on how much it drops for those larger files. If it goes from 10Mbps to 1 Mbps I could see the point, but if it only drops to something lik 7 or 8 Mbps I think that's a reasonable rate. We also have to remember that this is a residential connection. It is designed for the typical residential user. That type of person will download a lot of smaller files regularly. The result is that the web browsing will seem very fast. ISO downloads? Not so much.
I wonder how it deals with P2P or a multi-streams of data. What if I have 10x 30Kbps streams running simultaneously would that aggregate and trigger the throttle down mechanism?
I don't know if I agree with that assessment. It seems to me as if H. Ergaster simply progressed as far as his brain would allow, and no farther. A simple hand axe was just the apex of his ability. Looking at H. Ergaster makes me rather worried about the future of our species...after all, we haven't been around nearly as long. What if we run up against an innate limit in our brains, and our technology can proceed no further?
I think that it helps illustrate what is actually a non-distinct separation between H. Ergaster (thanks for identifying that) and modern humans.
If it were the case that H. Ergaster simply reached the limits of their mental capacity, we should have seen other examples of tool use. We should be able to find species which developed tools a step or two beyond H. Ergaster. Instead what we see is that there is a type of technological explosion beyond that point.
I would argue that our intellect has reached a sort of 'critical mass' with regard to its capacity to manufacture tools of increasing complexity and advancement. While we may reach plateaus, our intellect allows us to circumvent artificial limits and develop new technologies. Even now, we are inventing tools that help us create tools that are beyond our physical limitations (CAD, genetic simulations, etc).
In contrast, H. Ergaster invented and used the stone axe, and almost a half million years later was still using the same stone axe. In a similar amount of time, modern humans have progressed from the stone axe, to sending robotic explorers to other planets.
Without a doubt I think it would be a possiblity, but I'm not sure what changes would have to be made to the smelting process to produce something usable. While metallurgy isn't my area of expertise I can work through the process a bit to see where some problems would occur with an underwater smelting operation.
It isn't sufficient to just have a heat source to smelt, if you just heat up the ore you would end up with melted ore. There is actually a chemical reaction taking place, mainly it is the use of carbon to bind the Oxygen in the form of CO2. The basic reaction is Ore+Carbon+energy = Metal + CO2.
While it would be possible to introduce an ore and carbon to a heat source (500 degrees should be sufficient for Tin or Lead) The water vapor and CO2 being produced would result in an unstable environment. It would be like a lot of little explosions going off while you are trying to direct the flow of a liquid.
This would assume that they would actually KNOW that they could smelt in the first place. For humans, it was likely that our ancestors built a campfire on a lead ore (which you really can't tell is lead ore just by looking at it w/o a knowledge of chemistry). The carbon from the campfire and the higher temperature is just right to smelt lead/tin. Repeat several thousand times and eventually an intelligent human figured out that they could repeat the process.
Underwater, campfires don't happen very often. (That just raises further questions!)
While tool use is certainly probable in an aquatic species that evolved intelligence, I would doubt that any such species would progress past the stone age in terms of technology. However, they may evolve a very advanced society, afterall, the Ancient Egyptians and Mayan cultures also were just progressing out of the stone-age yet they had highly advanced societies.
Why would they be limited to the stone age? If you assume that they are fully aquatic and not amphibian-like then they would lack one of the major requirements for progression beyond the stone age. Fire. Granted I may be taking a short sighted view of this, but without easy access to fire, it would be VERY difficult for such a society to develop anything beyond basic stone age tools.
I suppose it would be possible for them to utilize a volcano as a source of energy to smelt metals. But I would imagine that smelting in an aquatic environment would have some severe drawbacks. (even if we ignore the problem associated with oxidation of metals)
The probability for intelligence seems to me to be the biggest hurdle. That humans are intelligent at all seems nothing more than a genetic fluke, and not a guaranteed outcome.
However, given our understanding for life, and how it evolved, it would seem that complex life forms would probably NOT be rare at all.
The biggest hurdles for human-like intelligence probably includes the following:
1. Self replicating molecules. I'm not sure how precise the conditions for getting life started are, but it probably isn't something we would see very often.
2. Conditions remaining stable for those molecules for a very long time.
3. Symbiotic relationships developing between organisms. (requirement for multi-cellular life)
4. The creativity mutation. (for lack of a better term.)
In between, it seems that the process of natural selection would be the driving factor, but those 4 items listed are probably the most important 'leaps'.
With regard to the creativity mutation: As I recall, there was a proto-human homonid that DID use tools, but never developed on that tool (The stone axe they used at the beginning of their existance was the same stone axe that they used at the end of their existance) And that period of time wasn't short, something on the order of millions of years where they used the exact stone axe. While they were using a tool, there was no real thought behind it. In that respect, it seems that it was much like a spider's web, a very precise tool for survival but instinct rather than a developed idea.
Serves me right for lurking for years before registering ;)
What would you call photo-voltaic cells arranged in such a manner to convert the electromagnetic radiation of nearby stars into electricity?
I'd be fine with solar panels.
And that is why people in the military don't drink.
Following my job, I unfortunately have moved into a county where it is not possible for an average person to get a license to carry. I still have the license to carry from my previous residence, but this county will not grant one.
I easily passed the background check for my concealed carry permit in my last state, yet here even though I pass, they don't like my rationale (self defense is not justified in their eyes)
So the license is denied because they don't grant licenses. Now what?
For good or ill, I hadn't heard of JHDL until you just mentioned it. VHDL was what we used when I did my undergrad.
When I was at the USAFA I had to use the alternate BMI measurements because of those damned requirements. I was short. 5'7" 180 lbs. That listed me as overweight, so I had to do the body fat calcuation option. It measured me at 6-7% body fat.
But looking at the requirements now, you are correct that if someone can't meet the AF requirements that they probably should budget an hour or two for exercise in your daily schedule. You only need to have less than 20-24% bodyfat to pass. More than that IS pretty unhealthy for a male.
I worked for a gentleman that was a Captain in the Navy. This guy was older than dirt, but surprised the hell out of me with how computer literate he was. He was fit, active, intelligent and an adept computer user. You might say so what, there are lots of older people who are in shape, intelligent and know their way around the keyboard.
He was 94 years old when he passed on and taught me plenty about computers. He was already 33 years old when ENIAC was unveiled. He was working until his last days because he enjoyed it so much. Perhaps the amusing part was at the funeral we had remind ourselves that we were shocked at his death at 94 due to his clear mind, and active lifestyle. If you met him, you wouldn't have thought he was a day older than 70. I'd say if someone is shocked at your passing at age 94, then you probably were doing it right.
Certainly a fossil, but far from petrified.
Get with the times. Illegal pictures are now undocumented migrant worker pictures.
That is because most of us realize that there is no reason that the reason an asprin at a hospital costs $22 each is because the costs of our healthcare has been so obsfucated that none of us even know what a fair price for healthcare is nowadays. However, we do know that if you take our current healthcare problems, and try to bandaid on a fix like national healthcare, we will end up with some beast of a system that costs more and provides less.
There is a fix to our healthcare problems, unfortunately nothing I've seen so far begins to address the real problems.