MichaelCook

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

[quote who="psychoak" reply="131" id="2524628"] Idiots will think "Conspiracy theorist nutjob, the slippery slope argument is a joke!" Cyclamate. A once popular sweetener in the US. It causes cancer. Lab rats developed bladder cancer at a rate of .3% taking in the equivalent of you drinking 350 cans of soda a day. That was cause for the FDA to take an excellent sugar substitute with minimal side effects, invaluable to diabetics, and ban it. Sacch

Reply to Air Force Is Building SuperComputer From PS3 Consoles in Everything Else Elemental Forums

Have you heard the rumor about iPhones? They have the capability to link together and process information in the backround of what your doing. Lots of them out there, controlled by the cool Apple overlords... Ah, I just made that up. [e digicons]O:)[/e] [quote who="CrazyElectron" reply="2" id="2523950"] I'm guessing whatever cost benifits they get from using mass produced consoles will be wasted in co

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

So, if facism is "a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system" then isn't the USA partly a facist country? The corporatist economic part yes. Radical and authoritarian nationalism? Nationalism yes. Radical? The potential is certainly there given the right circumstances. Authoritari

Reply to Air Force Is Building SuperComputer From PS3 Consoles in Everything Else Elemental Forums

Nice of them to tell everyone, I'm sure countries on a budget would like their own supercomputer. Unless its a trick and using PS3's is designed to throw people off, and the real supercomputer is being built in secret from Wii's......

Reply to Obama just cut off funding to NASA??? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

Reason to go to the moon: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/1283056.html Look who else is interested: http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/17-03-2006/77404-moon-0 Big $'s to be made....

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

[quote who="synnworld" reply="79" id="2520425"] Quoting synnworld, . And here is where I make you look like an idiot; where did I say that I wanted a government free world? Second; no place is not government free, no matter a losely it looks there is a government. In a tribe there is a tribe leader isn't there; there are holymen and/or consels people turn to are their not. This things can be viewed as part of thier loose government.[/quote]</

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

[quote who="synnworld" reply="76" id="2520383"] Quoting Leuthesius, reply 75There's only one "perfect" government. That's a government that doesn't exist. I vote this as the most idiotic post of january of 010[/quote] Who is going to build roads then? Educate children? Police the streets? I'm pretty sure some places in Africa are as you desire, Government free, and people are running from rather than running to these places.

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

The only threads that don't become derailed are the "Game" threads. And thats because there is something to win which keeps your eyes on the ball. [quote who="RogueCaptain" reply="68" id="2520295"]Go study Chile, there is such a thing as privatized social security. Chile was one of the early modern nations to implement modern socialist social security and one of the first to go broke as a result. The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of OTHER

Reply to The iPad is Here, Will You Get One? in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

No, but then my phone has no camera nor a color display. I don't go for gadgets and I'm happy to read books on my laptop if needed (currently reading Dune Messaih) so I'm clearly not their target market. Does anyone here buy gadgets but are just not opting to jump on the bandwagon and embrace all that the mighty Apple releases?

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

So you are saying that because some people abuse the system those who truely need it should go without? How about with a free-market? Is there room for abuse there? Who suffers then and is that ok because its a dog eat dog world and its survival of the fittest? I liked on Sicko the "I've got a Golden Ticket" bloke, the guy who "Loves his momma" for anyone who saw it. And yes Mike Moore is biased and sometimes a bit shonky, but playing the Golden t

Reply to Release date? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="1" id="2519319"] And according to Stardock, the release will be: "When the consensus is that this is the best turn-based strategy game of its kind available.". It's going to be a looong wait.[/quote] Well not really, when was the last fantasy turn based game with tactical battles game released? Dominion 3? Fall from Heaven 2 comes close.... but no tactical battles. Ah Third Age mod for Medieval 2 Total War!

Reply to "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than"... in Everything Else Elemental Forums

Is he simply a puppet? How much control does the President personally use? We all love the movies where the President goes "Dahm it! I'm the President of the United States of America and I say what goes!". Looking at documentries, with Bush he had Cheney and Rumsfield, and a couple of other key players who had strong idealology. I guess they all do, one man (or woman) can't do all the thinking on everything. To how much a puppet they become, I gue

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

The Nazi's were ecomonically popular. The Volkswagen was a good car. Germany as a state attempted genocide. Therefor all socialist systems result in people happy with their lot, driving around in cool cars and killing a group of people with similar genes? Peoples Republic of China. China must be a place of political freedom for the average person because they are the PEOPLES Republic of China. They must allow some freedom in voting because they are the Peoples REPUBLIC

Reply to Comprehensive Fantasy Book List in Everything Else Elemental Forums

I'm surprised the Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan and now taken up by Brandon Sanderson has not been mentioned. I'll fix the problem now: Robert Jordan: The Eye of the World The Great Hunt The Dragon Reborn The Shadow Rising The Fires of Heaven Lord of Chaos A Crown of Swords The Path of Daggers Winter's Heart Crossroads of Twilight Knife of Dreams R

Reply to Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

[quote who="Cerevox" reply="2" id="2518861"]Its because of the cold war. The goverment had this big propaganda campaign agasint the USSR and comunism, and it worked so well that people still hate communism today.[/quote] Governments hated communism before the cold war. Hitler hated communism. I thought the US fixation with free market ideals is also part of its self proclaimed identity, the part of the "land of the free", the place where somebody

Where does the US's obsession with the free market come from? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

As per the title. Why does the word socialism in the US cause frothing at the mouth? Not comming from the US I don't understand this, I can see socialism and capitalism both have positive points as well as negative ones, but it seems crazy to me that when Obama talked of changing the healthcare system there were all these people protesting saying "Government hands off my health" and such. After watching "Sicko" on TV the other night I think the av

Reply to "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than"... in Everything Else Elemental Forums

US healthcare needs a serious looking at. Who wants to live in a country where some rich kids insuring loans between other companies who have taken on NINJA loans cause you to lose your life savings, your in your fifties and there is no hope of getting the house back let alone buying another and your health is going downhill..... My wife, who is from the US, tells me private healthcare costs around $600 a month for a family. Not everyone can afford that. <

Reply to "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than"... in Everything Else Elemental Forums

Pretty much all US politicians are puppets to big money. I think Obama deserves another go, he started with a huge mess, unpopular wars the US is largely commited to and the financial crisis that Bush was happy to leave for somebody else to sort out. I am worried that he won't rock the Wall Street boat too much, and so the rich will stay rich and the poor will stay poor, but no free-market loving Republican would touch Wall Street so keep Obama in

Reply to Ubisoft is dropping PC DRM but.... in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

I will never buy a Ubisoft game if this is true. Many still will but not me. Most likely somebody will crack the game and release an unofficial version that needs no internet to play. Before the official version is released. Some true sales will then be lost to people who would buy the game but don't like the restrictions.

Reply to The true face of DRM in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Ultimatley I think some developers want the pay system to be like an arcade where you pay per play. You must log on to play, to log on you must pay....

"It will run on a netbook..." and other stuff in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I watched a vid with the Frogboy bloke saying this of the system requirements. So very happy to hear this. Finally a "non-indie" developer that is putting out a new game that I can play on my laptop, which I purchased some time back to play Medieval 2 Total War. Now if the Diablo 3 developers would do the same..... Different game so I'll play D3 in the future when mankind has advanced past money and I'll run D3 during my time in the communal Holodeck, thats about the time I aim to have to upg

Reply to Dawn of War II - An Exercise if Frustration in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Some people are hopeless, me to I guess for believing what I read on the internet [e digicons]:blush:[/e] It is correct though that if you install the game, connect it to the net, play it, stop playing it and turn off the computer, turn on the computer, find out the net in unavailable (for whatever reason) and thus you can't play the game installed on your computer? If this is true I'm surprised a Griefer has not Denial of Service attacked Steam

Reply to Dawn of War II - An Exercise if Frustration in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

http://www.beefjack.com/blog/news/pc-news-blog/dawn-of-war-ii-requires-steam-for-activation/ read post #14 by ottatouch. "to continue. my son purchased Dawn of War II. We noted the on-line activation required - fair enough. But on activating and creating the Steam account required he required credit card details. As he doesn’t have one, he would have to use mine." I have no idea, but it must be confusing enough that this person thinks he needs his cr

Reply to Dawn of War II - An Exercise if Frustration in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

Reading on other forums other issues have come to light. For example people that have internet access, but from behind a restrictive firewall (eg university students living on campus) can't get the game to work because the firewall blocks Steam. People have pre-ordered the game and not realised the internet condition, then they can't play, a couple of GI's have said this. Steam apparently requires a credit card number to have an account, so you paid for the game and then are asked for a credi

Reply to Dawn of War II - An Exercise if Frustration in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

What?!?!?! So you buy the box and if you have dial up or even *GASP* no internet your stuffed? What is the purpose of this? And how big is this game? How much of my bandwidth do I lose to download it, plus future patches. Then if I want to uninstall it to make room for something, then I guess I have to re-download it. What a pain. I'm interested in finding out how well sales go, its a pity we don't have an alternate reality world to compare sales