[quote who="Jafo" reply="480" id="3402348"] Quoting Kantok, reply 479Trying to claim that we should make global economy altering decisions based on the predictions of models looking out 50 or 100 or 1000 years is dumb. And doing nothing therefore is what? Clever? Or economically/conveniently profitable? When in doubt...do nothing. Eventually the doubt will be replaced by absolute certainty .... typically at a moment in histor
[quote who="Krazikarl" reply="475" id="3402330"] Quoting Kantok, reply 471Randomness has nothing to do with it. Good job killing that straw man you built though. He's dead. Randomness has everything to do with your primary concern - that the models don't good predictions over the short term, and therefore shouldn't be trusted over medium terms. I mean, you were claiming that the models are not trustworthy over 50 years, which is clear
[quote who="Jafo" reply="476" id="3402334"] Quoting Kantok, reply 473Because you can't develop an emerging economy on solar power and electric cars. SAAB 'died' because a bankrupt company bought it [GM]....but it's been 'saved' by a Chinese/Korean consortium....to return as an..... ...Electric car. Yep, looks like China's 'emerging economy' has seen the writing on the wall - their massive emerging demand for the
[quote who="Jafo" reply="469" id="3402317"] Yes, all we need is for EVERYONE to approach the potential/reality of AGW the same way as yourself. 'Everyone' means the entire planet's population...and grouped 'entities' known as corporations/industry/business/Government. [/quote] The problem is that the only people who can afford to live like Brad are the upper portion of people in the very wealthiest societies on the planet. Eve
[quote who="Krazikarl" reply="470" id="3402318"] This is actually incorrect when modeling a stochastic process like, say, the climate. If you are modeling a process with many random effects (like year to year temperature variations), those year to year variations will dominate the predictions over the short term. However, the randomness averages out over time. That's how statistics works. Thus, models actually become substantially more accurate over
[quote who="GeomanNL" reply="455" id="3401190"] In about 1000 years we'll have reached Triassic levels of CO2 (and probably temperatures); by then all icecaps and all glaciers will have melted, adding about 70 meters to the water level. That means, 0.7 meter of sea level rise per decade, not including thermal expansion. [/quote] This is cute. The "scientific" side of the debate is arguing about how things are going to be 1000 ye
I just got this Kickstarter update in my email. Have to admit, seeing the alpha had gone live I am tempted to upgrade from my lower tier to get in. There's just something fun about being involved at that early stage. I love a good argument about gameplay systems.
[quote who="Lavo_2" reply="449" id="3401143"] To be frank, I don't give two %$@!# about the whole global warming debate, but pumping less CO2 into the air is a good thing as it means humans breathe it in less and less of that crap gets adversely absorbed by stuff we care about such as water. Add to that the fact that petro has a large variety of uses outside of fuel, such as in the manufacturing of polymers/plastics, and it will either eventually run out or become horribly expensive
[quote who="Krazikarl" reply="342" id="3399599"] EVERYBODY IS AGREEING THAT ITS HAPPENING AND THAT HUMANS ARE TO BLAME. [/quote] No, they're not agreeing with that. Not at all. And the fact that AGW true believes keep insisting that everyone really agrees with them when in fact everyone doesn't is what makes this whole thing more akin to religion than science. Insisting, capitalizing, jumping up and down and screaming at the top of y
[quote who="Trojasmic" reply="25" id="3399137"] We already have a "Slam" ability ... it's called "Bash". Shouldn't "Slam" do something different like divide army stack into separate single-unit armies or throws army into another adjacent army causing first army's attack damage into second army?!?[/quote] I read it like Bash is an active ability (the mob/user uses it and activates a cooldown). Slam is a passive effect. 25% chance on every
The vast majority of users (not the kind posting in a thread here about hypothetical future browser tracking) long ago made the subconscious choice to trade privacy for features and convenience. I honestly think this issue is dead. The NSA stuff, which when it first started coming out was supposedly going to change everything related to privacy, hasn't even moved the needle. Get off the tech sites, the internet outrage bubble and away from the few politicians who are tal
[quote who="Chasbo" reply="67" id="3391019"] I understand where you are coming from. You are explaining. The problem here is that people like to be thought of as people, not "costs" and when an average person hears about corporations using those kind of words it makes one feel less than human. Tie that in with data you hear about, corporations sitting on a trillion dollars, 50,000 factories closing in the last 10 years because of out sourcing, unions getting busted, CEO's like Ron Jo
[quote who="Eilarais" reply="34" id="3390928"] Personally I read these threads about DLC valuation, F2P vs. gameplay debates, and micro-transaction confusion, and I think: We gamers should just have bitten the bullet and taken the price hike, back when we had the chance. I would definitely take a $70 standard in exchange for getting rid of all these "creative" ways to separate us from our money.[/quote] That in and of itself is taking a stance on DLC. The beauty of DLC, as
[quote who="HG_Eliminator" reply="63" id="3390440"] Really?? Iphones, Ipads and unlimited data plans are cheap? Interesting... Growing up in some of the poorer neighborhoods in so Ca., Pomona for example, I watched my mom struggle with 2 jobs at times trying to keep a roof over our head while providing electricity,gas, food and water, and clothing while driving an old pinto, her proudest moment for a long time was buying a 1975 Cordoba in 1984... All the whil
[quote who="psychoak" reply="269" id="3390433"] Oil isn't expensive. The Fed has tripled the base money supply, we're in a depression though so no one has noticed the inflation yet. Our trade partners have done the same insanity, they'll all inflate with us at a similar rate when the economy gets out from under the spending binge. The oil market noticed. $110 oil isn't a high price, it's $35 a barrel five years ago if yo
[quote who="HG_Eliminator" reply="60" id="3390421"] But really is it the unions fault or Americas desire for cheaper stuff? [/quote] The thing you are complaining about, the desire to make goods available as widely as possible as cheaply as possibly while still being profitable, is the exact thing that has allowed the human race to reach an unprecedented (and still growing) level of quality of life. The fact that exotic or expensive goods continue to get c
What difficulty level are you playing? Are you playing 1.2 or the 1.3 beta? I've found in the 1.3 beta that the enemy is actually pretty smart about compiling armies to attack with. I normally play on Challenging or Hard. If you're playing 1.2 I'd suggest giving the 1.3 beta a try or, if betas are not your thing, just give it some time until the 1.3 patch is rolled out.
[quote who="GeomanNL" reply="263" id="3390399"] Step one was: drill a hole and catch the oil. No cost at all. Step two: drill a hole and add a pump. Still dirt cheap! Step three: build oil platforms and get oil from the seas. A lot more expensive already. Step four: drill a hole and inject seawater to keep the pressure up. Yes, we still get oil but for how long. Step five (fracking): drill a hole and inject chemicals to fracture the rock
[quote who="myfist0" reply="264" id="3390407"] I am not one for subsidies of any kind, but if we are forced to give our money to invest in clean energy, why not give it to the builders and owners, and let the companies design the best product that many people can choose from? The best products would flourish and the shit will be buried.[/quote] Because then you can't make sure that the people who supported your election with giant piles of
[quote who="GeomanNL" reply="261" id="3390391"] I was refering to Canadian shale oil which was mined from the surface, not the more modern fracking. Fracking has different issues. Tiny oil fields, hard to exploit ... and it's sold like it's a game changer for the world. To me it's more a sign of desperation. The big, easy to exploit oil fields are almost a day of the past. So what are we happy with nowadays? Tiny, hard to exploit oil fields. I think it's just pathetic. A
[quote who="HG_Eliminator" reply="56" id="3390345"] I wish more board members and upper management had this sort of mentality, typically it's whats the cheapest while keeping the quality loss to a minimum.. in some cases quality of the work and end product suffer greatly as they milk the company dry before filing bankruptcy. [/quote] I think they do have this mentality, at least at most companies. My day job is for one of the companies sure to be listed anytime you
Workers are costs. That's not some nefarious greed showing through. It's basic accounting. Good workers cost money, but bring benefits to the corporation. Companies understand that. I always laugh at the idea that companies trying to make money is somehow a bad thing. That's what corporations are. For profit, money making enterprises. That's their reason for being. And the reason that so many of them are holding
[quote who="voo" reply="256" id="3389933"] It saddens me. My Hobbit land looks like this now. Everywhere you drive fields and fields of farms with giant white/black blades. Big and small. Even one from the back yard. Though, that one isn't so bad [/quote] That first picture is going to haunt my dreams. Curse you.
[quote who="Alstein" reply="40" id="3389925"] The hamburger won't cost $19, prices are determined not so much by costs of labor (which is a tiny percentage as is) but by what the market is willing to pay. From what I've read, the price would only go up only about 17%, if at all. http://consumerist.com/2013/07/30/how-much-would-a-big-mac-go-up-in-price-if-mcdonalds-workers-were-paid-15-per-hour/#more-10134128 [/quote] Even assuming those number
[quote who="Alstein" reply="36" id="3389844"] Why work? The amount of money given is not a comfortable life for most folks, a few folks who are super-frugal Clark Howard types would be able to live off the money, but most would want something more, and they would seek jobs. That said, those burger jobs (minimum wage) is gone will have to pay a wage that people are willing to spend their time working, whatever that is- the market would decide from a position of equ
