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@AGX-17 It seems to me that the issue is how you used "observe" in your post in a colloquial sense as opposed to what it means in a scientific context (especially when dealing with particle physics), which is misleading given the otherwise scientific tone of the post. I know I felt that something wasn't quite right with that sentence ("neutrinos cannot be observed"), so I guess the reaction from an actual physicist would be much stronger. Also, I think you are conflating physics with math. And while at a fundamental level, physics is math, the way we make sense out of the math is not by glancing at formulae and going "a-HA!". So you can probably explain the QM atomic model to just about anyone given enough interest and time, but only people that in addition have a strong math background will be able to accurately calculate the probability density for 4f orbitals, or whatever. Does that mean you can only explain physics to mathematicians? Also, f=mv? I don't remember that one from my classical mechanics classes.

Everyone have a sad story... its not about that, just as with crime it is not about correlation and contributing factors, it is about the realization that you can overcome then and improve your life. Every social change start somewhere exposure on media, social pressure, education etc, however, there is nothing better then personal realization and will to put an effort. You are a personal trainer, tell me how many of the people who came to you and said they didn't care or shoveled excuses, at the end of the road said they didn't know how they lived before? So yes my bottom line is the same. It is about not giving up on yourself, self control, small steps.. If understanding contributing factors is part of that then great, but more often then not it used as excuse not to start anything. There are two kinds of people losers and winners, winners are not losers and losers are those who give up. I don't know what drives people to change their habits, because it's different for everyone. In my case, it was something as silly and vain as the hope that I would get noticed more by the opposite sex (it worked, but not quite the way I expected...). For others it may be medical prescription after a check-up, a desire to look better, a way to blow off steam. But it really is a minority that are both healthy and thinking about long-term health. So I guess many people don't really "care" but still do it, while there are others that are aware of the problem but, for whatever reasons don't ever get started. I'm sorry man, but I'm not buying into this manichaean vision of winners and losers, of strong and weak. That is a division that is only really valid if made in retrospect, evaluated at the end of a person's life. But until that point, it's still up in the air; and whatever paths a person takes are the result of a myriad of factors, only one of which is willpower. Unless you believe that some people are naturally weak minded, but then the proposition is even worse (punish the weak for being weak). Also, do not take this as a defense of hedonism—I am fairly frugal myself—but I honestly believe positive encouragement tends to work better at getting the point across than the tried and not-so-true A HUNDRED LASHES!!! method. For non-psychopaths, at least. Right, that sounds sensible. Now, precisely where is this "nasty" threshold at? Take lower back pain, for instance. Sure, it lacks the shock value of, say, a West Nile Virus outbreak, but it's the #1 cause of lost work hours in many developed countries. That sure looks like something public health policy should be addressing, don't you think? And speaking of gross, what is exactly "soy milk chai tea latte"? If it doesn't come from something with teats, it sure as **** is not "milk". edit: huh, so "teats" is allowed, but the colloquial alternative isn't. Hooray for consistency.

From what I've gathered (I have not played either EE), both versions could really have used a longer development/QA cycle. Even after the bug-related backlash from the first game, they still decided to go ahead and do the same for BG2. I'm going to hold off purchase for a while, until they give the game the polish one would expect from a finished product and, most importantly, until my must-have mods have been updated (Y U NO ASCENSION?!). Also, the way they have handled translations leaves a lot to be desired. That alone is reason enough for me not to buy, even though personally I do not play translated/dubbed versions. I can't comment on the quality of the new content, but their M.O. with regards to gold status quality standards does not give me much hope for a Beamdog BG3.

Yeah... "some" has the advantage of being a completely arbitrary amount so it facilitates a reasonable-sounding retort while making it impossible for you to be strictly wrong. Read the report itself, the corruption costs amount to a bit under the annual budget for the EU. Oh, and while we're at it, let's also gloss over the fact that corruption is by no means homogeneously spread, being worse in countries in the lower wealth brackets... or where the sea of money is actually rather dry. Nah, accusations of corruption coming from the EU are an exercise in hipocrisy, no matter how you spin it.

I really hate carving up posts (takes the focus away from the topic and turns discussion into a ping-pong match where reductionism is the racket), so I'm going to ramble a bit instead. You know... I used to think like you. And I don't mean this in a condescending manner so I apologize if I come off that way. I used to dislike fat people and despise their indulgence, their lack of self-restraint and willpower, their weakness. Then I got to work for a time as a personal trainer and found out that there is much more to their lives than what my limited, caricaturesque images of people I hadn't even met allowed room for. Ever since coming to this realization, I have made a conscious effort to keep in check my tendency to make generalizations and quick judgments at first glance. It's an arduous effort to constantly second-guess myself, but I feel I connect better with people. Now, after this heartwarming tale of self-discovery that I'm sure brought a tear to your eye, I am going to discuss a few points that don't sit well with me. if something is a contributing factor it by definition cannot be an excuse... because it is a contributing factor. "correlation does not imply causation" is not a valid way to dismiss a correlation. In this case, the issue is not whether poverty equals obesity, but rather whether or not to tax sugar. The correlation before means that an indirect tax on sugar will hit people that are already struggling to get by harder. That's hardly fair, is it? taxing is, by and large, ineffective at modifying the behavior of people. If this is, in fact, a public health matter, then the focus must be on fixing the problem rather than simply punishing unhealthy habits—not only because it is an illegitimate use of taxing power, but because it really only serves to move wealth out of people's pockets and into the "public" coffers. It does not address the public health issue, it simply accounts for it. people are much more receptive to educational efforts than coercive or punitive measures. Case in point, the traffic code. Provide people with a general health roadmap and work to make it so following it is not much more difficult, and people will be healthier. Much like better roads and driver training results in less accidents.

DDO was released back in 2006 (holy **** 8 years already??) and went F2P with a model that more or less works as you describe (you need to purchase the additional adventures/classes/races) and has been getting steady content updates since, so I'm guessing it's profitable enough. It's based on the Eberron setting, which is apparently a big turn-off for many people. In my opinion the game worked beautifully so long as you kept away from PvP. So the market is there. Neverwinter, on the other hand...

Well, there's always the ignore/report buttons. However Oby's threads are always popular (as lof's were) and foster some rather interesting discussions. I've been gone for a while, but it's not oby I see trolling...

Klepacki is awesome. But, as with everything, the Nod version is more better. (that was his actual band btw) OT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhOvbfyyJw "ingame footage" indeed.

That's a nice sentiment. And maybe in the UK it's different, but here the results for the latest voting survey were made public yesterday and, even in the face of rampant corruption and waste, judiciary manipulation (we got an official letter of admonition from the EU, for all the good that will do) and record unemployment and poverty levels, the ruling party is still expected to win the next election. I don't know what word I'd use to refer to ourselves, but it's definitely not "citizens". —For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, "hold office"; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve. John F. Kennedy, 1955

Right. The implicit basis for your reasoning is that whatever fatal malady cancer is substituted with down the road, has an equivalent or greater cost, so decreasing cancer risk means no overall savings. But cancer is a chronic disease that is particularly expensive to treat, unlike other old age-related acute afflictions. In addition, this logic can be used to justify opposing any public health-related reforms aimed at reducing the impact of lifestyle or occupational diseases.

If you think that's cool, you have all it takes. Get started, and you'll be "into training" sooner than you realize. Baby steps, man...

You seem awfully certain that the choice factor outweighs any others. And I may be inclined to agree, if the choice was whether to be poor or not. I'm sure you can see how absurd the implication that people willingly make an informed decision to be poor is. Because, you see, the correlation between obesity and poverty is a fact. http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2667.full As Enoch excellently explained, value judgments are not the best way to handle this, regardless of how expedient they may be. You are going to have to explain this one old boy, because I don't understand how removing the costs of cancer treatment from the equation does nothing to improve the healthcare bottom line. edit: I f***in hate this new boards code messing with my quotes and font sizes. That is all.

I was more or less going to make the same point as alanschu, so no need to rephrase it. I'm going to add simply that less than 1% of the general population train with elite-level competitive goals in mind—and those who do only keep it up so for a period of their lives—so it makes no sense to have the same methods, standards and objectives for professional athletes seeking specific results in a particular sport than for everyone else. In addition, and please do not take this personally, the relation between mass and "strength" is not linear. Oly lifters in the lower weight categories handle greater poundages than their heavier counterparts, relative to their weight. Guys in the middle tiers handle more weight in 1-RM compound lifts than BB'ers that are heavier. The reason is that, assuming equal motor neuron efficency, the torque a muscle can place on a joint is a function of its cross-sectional area while its weight is proportional to is volume. The cross-sectional area increases (roughly) with the square of the area of the muscle, but the volume does so at a cubic rate. Again, this is assuming perfect motor neuron function, which is an ideal proposition. Gains in raw strength can be a result of better neuromuscular efficiency without necessarily adding (much) mass. It is also important to consider what we understand by "strength". Are we simply taking into account marks for the "big three"? Then everyone is a powerlifter. How about power? Resistance? Flexibility? Coordination? Again, I'd refer to the vid I posted. If those aren't strength feats, I don't know what is. But if you are not convinced, take a look at NFL players. Those guys have it all, speed, strength, agility, stamina. They are also usually rather massive—momentum is key if you intend to keep running after a tackle—but they are not as massive as BB'ers, powerlifters, etc. The point I'm trying to make with this long-winded tirade is that there is a continuous spectrum between not training and training for competitive results in top-tier strength events. Most people are going to be in the middle.

Holy **** this thread moves FAST. Thought Police of course. You know that's coming too. No need for that, brah. You already have the legions of conformity and cultural homogeneity doing a great job at vituperating, ridiculing and ostracizing anyone that seriously questions the foundations of "prosperity" and the "western way of life". And best of all is, they do it on their own dime. Beautiful, isn't it? Yeah... how about working towards a society where people can actually make informed decisions (education) and act on those decisions (wealth distribution)? Punitive/coercive measures are notoriously ineffectual at driving meaningful social change. There are no simple solutions that can be adopted just by signing off on a law. Access to quality food is one factor, but there are others such as affordability and the ever-decreasing availability of time to do anything that isn't slave away for minimum wage. Does anyone seriously believe that people willingly eat **** laden with poisons on a daily basis if the alternative were just as quick and easy? Ah, but who cares. So long as it's not me getting a stroke (or cancer, or multiple sclerosis, or...) IDGAF. Life's good, yoloswag, etc.

Sure is. Until you realize that, as with most mafia-style organizations, they are involved in other types of not-so-innocuous activities such as sex trafficking, weapons smuggling, racketeering, etc. It's a jungle out there.

Because shut down the corporations and and lo and behold you have paved the way for a criminal cartel to provide the same good/service at a markedly increased price, without oversight, and most importantly, outside of the fiscal revenue system. Not that the difference is too significant tbh...

This is what happens when you want to have your own cake and eat it too. Mounting costs derived from unhealthy practices and conditions endemic to developed societies coupled with population ageing are making healthcare and pension systems unsustainable. So you either do away completely with social benefits and adopt a free-for-all approach or curtail personal freedoms because abuse is risking viability of the system for everyone. In reality, it's just the latest symptom of the general lack of civic virtue and hedonism.

It's not about a specific religion per se, it's about the importance of humility and tolerance in the pursuit of knowledge. Well, yeah. It's good advice in general, I suppose. Arrogance is very much human nature. Zealots (scientific or otherwise) are often unaware of the huge void of non-knowledge that surrounds the tiny parcel of sense they clutch so desperately, but these traits aren't restricted to yokels. Not even titans of science are exempt from this—Newton allegedly wrote his Principia in a deliberately arcane and convoluted manner so as to pre-emptively defeat attempts by "mathematical smatterers" to tackle his work. The internets tends only to amplify and provide an outlet for the negative aspects of personality, so yeah. Good effort, but people gon' people...

"Quest Started: Zip Up Your Fly"

I guess you mean pull ups? Unless you mean with a pronated close grip? It's odd because supinated grip gives the elbow flexors a better mechanical advantage than when you use a pronated grip. Maybe your lats are naturally dominant in comparison to your arms. At any rate, if you are doing more than 10 reps throughout multiple sets, you should consider adding weight. No slacking... As for the sore chest, this is what I do when my chest is sore from a previous workout. The vid says shoulder stretching, but you'll feel it in your chest for sure. Me, I'm in my deload week, so not really busting my ass off. (I'll get to your other post tomorrow btw, argument's too interesting to pass up)

^ I think it can be inferred from the context that the good Dr's talking about the upper limit of what can be attained by humans. If there is such a thing as a set of "defined" starting conditions and rules for the universe (thereby introducing determinism) but they are unknowable, the question is largely philosophical. Seems from what is currently known about QM that the very idea of certainty is a "residue" of our mental representation of the macroscopic world. Fortunately, we have math nerds trampling all over our quaint little fantasies about reality 24/7, bless them. I don't very well see how this relates to God or religion, however.

Poster child for "Trying Too Hard".

Someone's got to pay for those roads and stuff, y'know. Still waiting on paper work so I can file mine, bank always is slow with them though so will be another month. Sure... roads... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUtyUTLeW1g @GD: You don't need to tell me how ****ed up my country is—chances are whatever you can dig up around the Internet, I've already spent some time raging about. Can't argue with the numbers, though, so don't take it too personally. It's funny because I have nothing but nice things to say about the Americans I've had contact with... you guys really need to take back your country. OT: Slept late, took it easy with the iron, watched some free physics lectures from MIT. It's interesting that the knowledge is more or less given up for free, but if you want to have an official piece of paper that says you are XYZ, then you have to shell out some serious dough.

Tell me what you think. Both ideas are referred to as "time", so both warrant consideration. Is there a relationship between them? How can space and time be the same thing if space allows me to go backward, or forward, but not time? No, what is not allowed is >1 copies of yourself existing simultaneously. How can you know that you haven't travelled to the "past" if your memory only registers events from... the past? But is me from the future the same as me from the past or are they two completely separate entities? Also Slaughterhouse 5 I don't know about this Slaughterhouse 5, but Google indicates it's a novel with time travel themes. Might have to check it out. A notion of different "you" at a different point in "time" only makes sense if you picture time as a linear dimension, in which you have a degree of freedom. Think of yourself at different points in "time" rather as roughly the same entity, with some changes. What is popularly imagined as time travel makes about as much sense as going to the other room while simultaneously remaining exactly where you are before you start moving. The whole experience is still shaped by the way your memory stores a (linear) summary of events and your mind struggles to make sense out of it.