alanschu

Fair enough. I certainly won't dispute that people have a need to believe in some sort of cause and effect. Heck, even controlled experiments, which are said to be the way to determine causation by controlling variables, are still just a bunch of statistics that attempt to find a correlation between two variables, and infer a causation from them.

Umm, that's still a 13% decrease. 100 - 13% = 87 100 - 13% = 87 --------------------- 200 - 13% = 174 Of course, if your employer no longer had to pay for your health insurance premiums, he could directly give that money to you. EDIT: Not surprisingly this has been addressed already >.>

Correlation does not imply causation is true, but mostly because causation is pretty much impossible to determine. However, the entire scientific method is about observing statistical correlations and implying causation. I just get tired of the mantra on the internet of people stating "correlation does not mean causation" as a defense to anyone that brings in some data. If you wanted to be really skeptical, you could take Hume's approach that determining causation is pretty much impossible

Not to get into the debate, but "not for profit" doesn't mean that people work for free.

My cousin just got her Doctor of Medicine in April. Her starting salary up here in Canada is about CDN$350,000/yr. She seems to be doing okay financially. I saw an interesting video in my Sociology of Health and Illness class, my final year of University. It took a look at the health care system of Canada, and the health care system of the United States. In talks with both sides, you saw doctors that were for the system they were in, as well as against it. In both cases, doctors had issues with having to deny patients care due to cost, either due to limits from the government (Canada), or the HMO managing the care center (United States). Both sides had universal complaints about the escalating cost of health care, and restrictions on using expensive tests to make diagnosis. Though what I found most interesting was that, in general, the Canadian doctors interviewed said they'd prefer a more private system like the US, but the US doctors interviewed all said they'd prefer a system like the Canadian system.

You pay more because the people will pay it. Or are you saying that the drug companies would be willing to sacrifice their bottom line simply to charge the Americans less than they'd be willing to pay?

With a glorious post like this, I wonder what I am missing in this thread. /me starts at the beginning.

Like the original it seems like it takes place in the near future with an aggressor (in this case, China) and you being part of a unit responding, hoping to stop all out conflict (i.e. a reason for us to have armed conflict without the question "Why isn't there a huge war going on?") Also like the original, the game takes place in an open world... on Skira Island. It looks like it'll be a squad based tactical shooter type game, but at the same time, it looks like I see footage of driving vehicles as well, so I'm not sure if it lets you hop in and drive the tanks (Battlefield style), or if they are different missions altogether. Missions sound like the usual military fare: Recon, assaults, etc. I think it might be a bit more microscale though. The game info lists objectives as "laying down covering fire, covering a friendly unit's retreat or conducting short-range recon patrol." A control scheme common to FPSes with context sensitive commands in a "radial" menu of sorts, depending on what you're looking at. Sounds like you have the ability to call in artillery and airstrikes as well. The co-op game looks like a lot of fun, especially in the "hardcore" mode, which removes pretty much the entire HUD, leaving the player with just his eyes, equipment, and map. Playing with 3 friends in a realistic shooter could be a lot of fun I think. It'd force you to trust your teammates a bit more. The graphics look pretty amazing IMO, and watching the videos, a good amount of care has been put into sound as well. I like the little touch such as long range artillery blasts have a noticeable sound delay, simulating the speed of sound. My interest has been piqued. October 9th is the release date so not much time to wait either. I may TOFTT to see what it's like.

Anyone else know of this game? I just stumbled across it today, and it's release is pending! It looks pretty neat, and features a co-op game experience to boot! http://www.flashpointgame.com I'm watching videos of it right now while I break for lunch. I'll post more when I return.

Well, hopefully SEGA can use some of the money from my purchase of ETW to help with this haha.

He can annoy himself to death. As in, if he annoys himself by taking drugs >.>

Well that makes sense. Scope is going to kick people's ass more than Igor. Cassidy is just a more effective NPC.

If my comments bother you, you could do the same. I have a funny feeling neither of us will. The internet is funny like that. I said what I said because I saw it coming up a lot.

Nope, but they are convenient as hell I don't have any real means to resistance train my legs (the two dumbells I have are only 15 lbs) while at home, and my woeful shape at the moment had pushups and situps from the day before leaving me stiff. The DOMS in my biceps and triceps now are indication enough for me that there were demands on my body. I'm looking for exercises that coincide nicely with my "I get home from work late and want to be a lazy bastard" lifestyle at the moment, and they fit the bill The pushups and situps worked well for between turn gaps in ETW, as did the curls (and tricep extensions). I am NOT looking to particularly bulk up or anything like that.

You don't need to keep updating us that you're canceling your preorder. Who asked you, pal? I just mentioned it because it is all but too obvious that the game is now delayed. I have been just as excited for this game as anyone and was holding out until I knew for certain that it was going to be delayed. No need to damage control like a fanboy just because I have been looking at the situation for how it is. I still fully intend to buy the game whenever it does release. Who asked you about the status of your preorder, pal? I'm hardly a "fanboy" for the game. I'm excited for it, but you've been constantly reiterating that you have a preorder and that you're going to cancel it if it's been delayed. We get it. Unless you're trying to subtly send a message of "Well, the game has been delayed and you've lost my money now in the meantime as a result" to someone (which is really what it seems like you're trying to do to be honest). Heck, because of the volatile nature of game releases is specifically why I rarely preorder (and even then, usually only after a Gold confirmation). As for a delay, it wouldn't surprise me. When they're doing behind closed doors screenings of the game at PAX, it's a bit unusual so close to release. If the game was being canceled, they'd just cancel it. It'd eliminate the need to provide lip service for the game.

I heard that until these things become official, there's not much to be said about them due to legal reasons.

That might be the case haha. I don't really remember. All I really remember (and I might not even be right!) is giving them permission to (or not to) burst fire.

You don't need to keep updating us that you're canceling your preorder.

Given they've been actively demoing the game, it clearly isn't vapourware.

Jags, I always loved your way with words. Especially "wang"

I would reverse that and say that the combacy tactics were dictated by personailty type. Myron the wimpy scientist had distinctly different settable combat options, mostly variations of "Piss trousers and run", from Sulik. My statement was more along the lines of, the combat personalities were dictated by the options you set in their tactics and whatnot. That is, if you could set Vic and Cassidy to the same thing, they'd behave identically in combat, despite personality differences. We're both just saying the same thing.

hi, welcome to earth. If things cannot be overvalued, why do values inflate, bubble, then burst? like the housing market. WITHOUT the thing having been overvalued? oh wait. things CAN be overvalued. i get what you were trying to say, but you forgot about some things. like valuation, and how it can be done poorly by people and markets. Does that mean that things can be overvalued, or that valuation is not static? I'm inclined to agree with Volourn's assessment, because he basically just summed up supply and demand.

EA will get the developer's cut, but the share will probably be lower than what EA is used to. Also EA is building LucasArts' IP instead of their own, they can't license a SWTOR movie, etc. I won't be surpised if some of the EA people wish it's Mass Effect Online instead of Star Wars. What type of cut is EA used to from MMO games? No kidding the cut won't be the same as if it was their own IP, but that hardly means that EA is not hoping for big things from the game. I guarantee that EA is very excited about SWTOR.

Where did you get them from? it was some english learning software for my younger sister, from now defunct software developer from my country, which name i don't even remeber now . Their activation servers are gone, so is my software, because no one even bothered to crack their software... lesson learned... mandatory online activation for any software, music, movie or toilet-paper is not acceptable for me anymore... What's the name of this software exactly?

Fallout 2's personalities were done simply by what types of tactics were available to them though, right?