Rostere

There are several important facts here: 1. The Soviet army was told specifically by Stalin that they should not answer any provocation from the German side with any reinforcements of manpower or strategic redeployment. Also, look at the Soviet Navy (which was not under the same orders) and the Black Sea operations (the Siege of Sevastopol and the Siege of Odessa, for example). 2. Remember how the Allies fared in France against the Germans? Germany had, until some time after the turn of the war, by far the most efficient military on earth. I would not blame the SU for not winning against them from the start. The purges, even though they robbed the SU of Tukhachevsky (who was probably the greatest Russian commander in modern times) did not leave them entirely without other capable military minds. The Russian military establishment was at the time (even after the revolution) much more backwards than their German counterpart. Now, I'm not defending Stalin, I'm just saying that the SU made a bad start in WW2 because of reasons other than the purges.

Well, it seems Murdoch has finally thrust the stake through his own heart. About time.

I see no problem with creating a stronger European central authority in itself. On the other hand, if it's going to look like the current one, I wouldn't want it. If it's supposed to work, you will have to design a democratic system that works for something as large as Europe. It would be by far the world's largest democracy, and perhaps also the most racially and culturally diverse so there's a difficult task for generations of politicians to come (I think). Anyway, I agree with Wals and the other Europeans about Italy. I do not think at all there is any risk for a European civil war or any sort of more serious inner conflict. However, if the EU should gain a more powerful central authority, we should be careful to avoid conflict with other foreign powers. I'm of course primarily talking about Russia, but also about the US. Russia and the emerging European Union are already practically locked in a bear's embrace over the Eastern European countries.

Well, I guess that supports my prediction that the big political issue of this century will be the one of free information. I know which side I'm on

Alice. That game had a brillant art style. Gameplay was not as good though, but still good enough to make it a game worth to remember.

Thing is, the math is right. The open question is about which mathematical model is right to represent the experiment. It's not evidence that I'm right, but it kind of supports my theory, if you say so. Clifford Algebra goes way back in time, but my impression is that it's really "in" among mathematicians right now. Obviously this article would be the most important in "determinism contra randomness" since Bell's paper, which in turn was the most important one since Newton. I bet no journals would risk their credibility by publishing such stuff without being 100% sure they are correct. I think a few things got mixed up here...

I don't see how anything's really "bizarre" here. As far as I know, everything that's happened in Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion has been boringly predictable and completely in line with everything I know about how the world works.

No, I don't think I can "easily" read up on advanced algebra, lol. I can read summaries and hopefully gain a superficial understanding of how one concept relates to another, but don't expect much more. I knew sooner or later I'd wish I had finished either of my degrees! Oh well. What exactly do you want to discuss, anyway? Well, if you're to be at the forefront of the discussion about determinism today I'm afraid that's what you'll have to learn, since the current matter of dispute is on the subject of Clifford Algebra applied to particle physics. I'm no expert at Clifford Algebra either - I know the basics of how it works, but I wouldn't say I'd knew exactly how to use it for any practical purpose. For your perusal: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0703179

Before we continue this discussion I would like to ask you a question: do you know (or do you think you could easily read up on) Clifford Algebra? (Also: complex systems is not really worth taking up here. The fact that the world is deterministic would not imply that you can't make good approximations of more complex processes you can't describe in detail (which Newton's law of universal gravitation proves)) Absolutely correct. You said Killain before this, but it seems addressed to me. It was meant to be addressed to Killian, but you are of course free to respond to it if you want

Seriously dude, where can you buy one of those?

If you're a student of some kind, you should check if your school has a MSDNAA agreement. In that case you can get W7 Ultimate for free I've had the full version for, like, ages.

One of the most famous Behavioural Psychologists, and arguably most famous psychologist, B.F. Skinner, would challenge that statement. He pondered whether or not free will is actually an illusion or not. The unfortunate thing is that it's not something that's really falsifiable (and like good little scientists, it tends to be a belief rather than statement of fact). Here's some fun metaphysical thoughts to think about. I just mentioned that there's the idea that free will is an illusion. One could quickly argue that that statement isn't true, and demonstrate it by actively choosing to do something that you typically would not do. Hence, you freely chose to do something. However, cognitive dissonance is a very powerful thing. In order to preserve your belief that free will exists, you perform an action to demonstrate that your free will chose you to do something. A determinist would argue that your decision to choose the action that you did stems from a variety of influences, from all sorts of operant and classical conditioning, to the cognitive dissonance that you'd be facing. As such, the action that you choose to do to demonstrate your free will is actually affected by the norms and mores of society (in addition to its Laws), your interpretation of what you consider typical behaviour for yourself, your own motivations and so forth. As such, you likely wouldn't choose to perform an action that would create further cognitive dissonance (like say, murder someone just to prove a point), and that the precise action that you choose at that time is the sum of all the influences and processes going on in your mind. Oh, back to philosophy class in high school. I really must add the following commentary which I feel neatly summarizes the subject: "You need only assume causality to refute the notion of "free will" (in the na

And so Einstein was right in the end, as usual.

Of course there must be some kind of punishment, so that crime doesn't pay. I.e., if you steal money from someone you should repay that person. This kind of punishment will only work to deter rational people from criminal activity, however. Additionally, there should be some kind of incarceration punishment to break up criminal gangs and help protect society from the worst criminals. But ultimately, punishment in itself is only cruel. You will always have to look at what you're trying to achieve when you punish someone. Real criminals should be taken care of by a social safety net, just like people with mental disorders. And just like a person with Tourettes can eventually learn how to suppress his/her tics, so a can a criminal learn how to become a productive member of society. Also, I believe that almost all of the people who commit crimes who are not "criminally inclined" do so because of a poor/bad social upbringing and background. You should work towards minimum segregation in a society. It is, as always, by far preferable to work preventively.

I wish I had the flu...

Then why not dual-boot Windows and [insert Unix-based operative system of choice here] on a PC?

Word. A friend of mine bought a new computer recently for about 2900$. I was very excited about specs until he revealed it was a mac laptop... You could get a faster PC for under half of it's price. But since the world will continue to hold a lot of people who will never bother to learn about computers I guess macs will continue to sell...

[conspiracytheorist] I bet the real reason AP was delayed is that they discovered that the game's story was way to similar to some recent international incident... Maybe this story about how a freighter that was perhaps carrying missiles was hijacked on it's way from Russia. [/conspiracytheorist]

I must that I recommend the game Original War to anyone who are about to buy something at gog.com...

My preorder for AP still stands. Good luck with finishing and marketing the game!

I'm happy AP is delayed, the team will have more time to polish it Here's to hoping they did not delay it to dumb it down!

I remember Incoming had a good soundtrack. Do you also get the soundtrack when you buy the game on GOG?

On a serious note, capitalism is for me more like an emergent law of nature like evolution than an ideology. But having said that, I'm not saying capitalism should be given free reins (anarchy). It's a bit like the nature we live in, we compromise it by building heated houses and using clothes, but there will always be an outside environment regardless of our efforts. BTW, I think Purkake should provide the vodka

Does not compute. Please, I'm trying to do some decent trolling here!

"Debt does not matter"... That is an interesting statement, if a little pessimistic.