alanschu

Penn & Teller's Bull**** did not claim zero medical evidence for second hand smoking being bad for your health. They pointed out that the two reports from the EPA and the WHO that are spouted off so much by the fans of anti-second hand smoking are bogus. First and foremost, the WHO had a study in 1998 that concluded: "Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] and lung cancer risk" only to later put out there press release to the public that states that it is....going against their own conclusion. As for the EPA, Penn and Teller pointed out the "25%" number that the EPA and the second-hand smoking advocates like to toss around. The 1993 EPA report states that those exposed to second hand smoke have a 25% greater chance of dying from lung cancer. What isn't apparent in this statement however, is that the change is from 1 in 100,000 to 1.25 in 100,000. Common-folk still like to state "well it's still an increase," ignoring the fact that they difference is not statistically significant (that is, the change could very well be based on the random sample and pure luck, and does not actually support the claim. If you're still not clear, get two different sets of 100,000 people, and you are likely to find this distribution based purely on random sample). Even IF, you change the measurement of statistical signifigance from the standard 0.05 to 0.1 (which is frowned upon in academia), you still only actually get a 1.19 or 19% relative risk. That's what Penn and Teller focused their second hand smoke episode on. As for the rifle....it's the power brokers that bullied that report into saying it took over 2 seconds to reload that round. You can play the conspiracy game both ways. Those that want you to believe it's a consipiracy have are committed to their own agenda. The guns weren't changed....that's just what the consipiracy theorists want you to think! EDIT: And the "bogus" physics have since been shown to actually have been accurate. The way that Kennedy's head jerked around actually does make sense, given the bullets coming from the same location.

"Spinning Side Kick!!!!" "Ya Ta!" Hehehe. My cousing was the only one that could match my Ryu ownage, and he did it with Chun Li. She was tough

Here's a larger exceprt: Palpatine staggered, snarling, but the blistering energy that loured from his hands only intensified. He fed the power with his pain. "Anakin!" Mace called. His voice sounded distant, blurred, ; if it came from the bottom of a well. "Anakin, help me! This is your chance!" He felt Anakin's leap from the office floor to the ledge, felt his approach behind

I wouldn't be surprised if I had one like that once, but I just don't remember it. My roommate jokes that my desire to be a superhero must really outweigh his, since he does not recall having any superhero dreams

Haha I don't remember that. I'm surprised they didn't throw in an igloo joke. Perhaps they're too cliche now?

I actually snagged a copy of Civ 3 for $10 about a month ago. I still like it....and certainly cannot wait for Civ 4!

Lately I've had neat dreams. They often involve me being the hero I've also noticed that a large portion of my dreams are now lucid dreams. The reason I know is that often something "bad" will happen in them, and while dreaming, I'm like "no no no, that can't be right" and I usually rewind and replay the scene with a more favourable outcome I suspect it's the video games. So used to Save and Reload. And the "no no no" part reminds me of old games like Conan and stuff where it's some guy telling a story and when you die, he always goes "Oh wait, that's not what happened!" or something goofy like that. I have actually had dreams where I was spiderman (I blame my friends and family, apparently I have a likeness to Toby Maguire, and even a young kid that I didn't know in the mall called my Spiderman!), as well as a Jedi Knight (one dream was particularly wierd, where I was Zorro with a lightsaber....needless to say I was pretty powerful ). I never get the woman though!! :D

I watched an episode of Bull**** with Penn & Teller (A hilarious, and often informative show - Their motto is "We're biased as *fark* but we try to be honest" - and they actually get professionals in the field discussed to suppor their arguments, so it's not just two guy saying "this is bull****"), and basically Penn took the same model of rifle that Oswald used, and was able to get off 3 shots while using the bolt AND even taking a moment to check his aim in less time than Oswald took....without any training (I've heard Oswald was a military man, so he'd have some training....don't know though...just hearsay). But even still, unless Oswald was their world's slowest man at pulling back a bolt, I can't see how it would take him 2 seconds per shot. I have no experience with firearms, and I was able to pull it back and load in a new round fairly quickly. *On a side note, my first every shot was with a Glock 9mm, and my first shot jammed the gun because I didn't fire it properly, convincing me that the argument that video games turn us into gun wielding experts is horesh!t, since I've probably passed 6 figures for the amount of "virtual" kills I've had in my entire life

I wonder how many of our "clairvoyant" dreams come true because they are of a somewhat plausible occurence in our life, and then when the situation presents itself, we're more willing to perform said task because we had dreamed we did it a certain way. Sort of like our dreams giving us an expectation.

I always preferred "Captain Obvious"

Meh. I think people place too much faith in the recent history of weather as being the way weather is. I also think people persistently underestimate nature...particularly the weather. If an iceage were to approach, people would assume it was a government plot, despite the fact that they've happened in the past. Not to mention that El Nino gave me (Edmonton, Alberta) +10 weather in December and snow in Mexico! Weather does wieeeeeeeeeeeeerd stuff. As for dreams...yeah, Freud is a bit of a crackpot. I don't mind his rationalization of Id, Ego, and Superego, but the dude was a bit too phallo-centric for my tastes.

As of right now: Half-Life Deus Ex Ultima VII The first two are pretty constant, but third place usually has a rotation

Don't underestimate the capability for military research to have practical applications. Also, don't underestimate "conservative" research to have large impacts on the more radical research ideas.

I have taken a few introductory psychology classes and it was always ineresting reading up on studies of perception and memory. I wonder if any of these sights/visions could be attributed to overactive neurons (which is what causes hallucinations in schizophrenics and whatnot) or dreams that seem real. It's particularly neat that memories can actually be constructed, particularly with shaping by a person asking questions. Someone's expectactions can alter or create a memory of something, or see things. I remember my Mom has a lamp of a little boy with a golf bag as the lamp post. I had a nightmare onetime that the head of the lamp zoomed towards me and scared the **** out of me, and was acting all demonic and all that fun stuff. After that, I flat out refused to sleep with that lamp in my room, and for the most part the lamp creeped me out for a while. I could even swear that the eyes were watching me. Many years later I stumbled upon that lamp, and it still gave me the shivers. But as I concentrated on it, I found that I could willfully perceive its eyes to be moving....which was a little bit freaky. But as I realized that I did have some control over whether or not that eyes appeared to move simply by concentrating on it, I began to realize that it likely was all in my head As for seeing the devil after your dream, I would imagine that your brain was still in an overactive state and you probably imagined him being there. The neat part is though, is that no one sees what goes into their eyes...everything we see is what the visual sensory cortex of our brain interprets for us (this is how hallucinations occur. Neurons are firing when they shouldn't be firing). I wouldn't be surprised if stuff like this happens quite frequently immediately following a dream, when you are barely lucid and your synapses are still erratic just like they are when you're dreaming. But hey, you say you know what you saw (or at least you know what your brain was telling you you saw ).

I voted for Jolee. He was the most fun to talk to. I found both Carth and Bastila annoying personally. Didn't leave me much for romancing

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

While being distracted in his desire to eradicate Luke.

I've heard that the ending of War of the Worlds is a pretty accurate representation of the book.

Hahahaha. I have played the demo, but I still haven't had a chance to pick up the regular game. I'm too busy being distracted with Hearts of Iron 2 at the moment. And I'm about to dust off my old copies of Close Combat.

Same thing happened, but in the opposite way, for Silent Hunter 3. Silent Hunter 3 gets corrupted graphics from water splashes and whatnot while trying to use the UZO, but ATI users don't suffer these effects...on nVidia users. Having said that, I must be a lucky ATI user. The last ATI card I had problems with was horrible performance on my Rage Fury. I don't get artifacting, I don't get texture glitches, I certainly don't get desktop crashes or stability issues. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I also do not tweak or overclock my card in any way :\

Olaf takes first. Tarquin is second. Jake's a distant third, and Rip's in another Time ZOne!

My favourite part of the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary was intentionally flying to the wrong star systems to take part in some crazy fun space battles.

Glad to see you gave the game a try. They are really addictive after a while. My friend got me on BF1942, and it was great. He was a fantastic pilot (particularly at dive bombing), and I became a pretty good tank driver, able to engage enemies accurately at long ranges while moving. I would secure flags and take care of infantry, and he would provide air support, taking out anti-tank vehicles and providing recon for me. We had it down to a T on some of the desert maps like El Alamien and Gazala.

Hehe here's hoping. I was always disappointed with the level of reciprocation in Civ and AC. I don't remember either game opening up with the planet busters after I did for them. Hopefully they incorporate something similar to the UN in Alpha Centauri. I loved the ideas of proposing a Solar shade and other stuff like that. And having your cities domed in case of planetary flooding was also cool. AC was definitely a cool game (I'll have to remember to grab it when I go back to my parents' place to pick up Close Combat 2 & 3).

I wouldn't consider it a waste of time, especially considering that 26 leaders for 18 countries clearly means that several countries are going to be less developed than others, which puts me in mind of an unfinished game. 468 leaders would be a great idea. One leader dies, and then his sucessor takes over, and so on, like an actual civilisation. Why have five civs with only one leader? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Because it's not the focus of the game. Some of them likely have one leader because finding suitable, secondary leaders for some of the classic civilizations was probably more difficult to do. Particularly for civilizations like the Zulu and whatnot. 468 leaders, given the focus of games like Alpha Centauri and Civilization, would be of limited success. Games like EU2 (which I really like, along with Hearts of Iron 2) can work more with multiple leaders. Paradox didn't need to create a diplomacy screen with animations and whatnot for the leaders. In fact, I don't even think they had pictures in EU2 (they do in HOI2 though), so it's a lot easier to simply have a different leader. I can't remember....but how much did the leaders affect your game in EU2? I know Hearts of Iron 2 they have a tangible effect, but spending time creating music, animations, and all that other fun stuff that adds flavour to the game (which it sounds like you enjoyed in Alpha Centauri) would be very, very expensive. I find it hard to believe that you'd rather have 468 leader names rather than fun, interactive leaders with unique scores and all sorts of flavour to make the game more fun (which is Firaxis' goal for Civ 4.....they're trying to make it fun and flavourful). Trying to have a heirarchy of leaders wouldn't make as much sense in a Civ game than in EU2. EU2 covers the scope of a very narrow range of time compared to Civ. EU2 is supposed to be a game set in an accurate historical time, that plays out in whatever way you like so as to create "what if" scenarios and add a twist to history. Civ 4 is supposed to span from 4000 BC to 2050 AD, and since they allow for nations such as Germany and America to exist in 4000 BC (or any other nation really) shows that they aren't looking for that kind of accurate detail. And trying to find 26 leaders for some of the nations like the Zulu or whatnot would probably also be time better spent elsewhere...like making the game more fun and adding the flavour and whatnot to the game that you like so much. I'd much rather have them continue all the work they've done to make the world seem less static and much more alive and representative of the civilizations that occupy it then spending time researching who would be appropriate leaders for the game. I think it adds much more to the fun to be immersed in the world as a whole than the smaller details. Those are best left to games that focus on them, like EU2 (P.S. I always preferred the Austrians....I'm not really sure why though...Maybe because I sucked with Navies. Ottoman was fun as well!) After reading up on Civ 4, to have reservations about based on not liking Civ 3 seems too narrow of a view IMO (although people may have other reservations about it, which is fair). It sounds like the game is trying to be much more of a "fun first" type of game, with improvements upon the good stuff, and finding ways to replace the "unfun" stuff from previous games. I really like how they are trying to incorporate the excellent ideas from Alpha Centauri as well (really looking forward to their government model!). Never did like the Morganites though. I guess I just found it wierd to play a game where the focus was exclusively on making money. I usually played the Gaians or the Spartans.