J'Dona

Max Payne. He took a bullet in the head and kept going just because he was mad enough. But if PC game characters aren't allowed ...

I suppose it could be in a certain case, but I'm not married. It's actually my brother-of-law's brother-in-law, or my sister's husband's sister's husband, but I thought writing it out in either of those forms would look weird.

I once had an interesting discussion with a guy (my brother-in-law's sister's husband) in California which I was too thrown off by to give a logical response to at the time. He said that certain recent studies had found that natural gas and oil were being produced under the crust in inexhaustable quantities by inorganic processes, and claimed that most all science currently done in regards to the environment was "BS". He cited the world-wide socialist conspiracy in science as the source of these misconceptions before his wife led him away.

Would have been YT but it took me too long to edit!

My apologies for the confusion; that particular phrase was from the BBC article. I really should have searched for a scientific article on the new planet like Spyman's before posting, rather than the first article I found.

Astronomers have detected the smallest extrasolar planet yet: a world about seven and a half times as massive as Earth orbiting a star much like ours. The new find may be the first rocky world found around a star like the Sun. It orbits the star Gliese 876, located 15 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Aquarius, and orbits with a period of 1.94 days at a distance of 0.021 AU, or 3.2 million km. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4089534.stm Because its mass is so small, it is not thought to be able to retain gases like hydrogren in the way that a gas giant does.

Yes, I've seen that thread. Majocracy is different from direct democracy in the sense that it seems to have a government administration and set of parties which are essentially the same as the sorts currently used in representative democracies. It could lead to radical reforms at the drop of a hat in the event that the populace loses some trust in the government due to some scandal, which is impractical. However, that thread does bring up other arguments that do apply very well against direct democracy, like this quote here:

Some of the same points are covered in there I think, but I'm assuming that this thread is more for creating new or hybrid forms of government from scratch, rather than describing yourself and what you would do if elected into an existing representative democracy.

Cool thread idea, I like designing governments in my spare time. Even if they are mostly unworkable and flawed ... How about a direct democracy? Now that they have decent communication (the internet), millions of people could vote on issues and action could be taken based upon them in an almost practical manner. You'd still need a government administration and all, and intelligence/military branches that would operate without public control, but overall it would provide a set of policies far more representative of the populace than representative democracy could ever produce. Since people wouldn't be voting on parties and the powers of individual persons in the government would be greatly reduced, it would also cut out political campaigning and make the government less prone to corruption. Of course, not every issue that the majority supports is actually the best choice. Since major decisions would now be made by the public rather than politicians, there would need to be some measures to ensure that only those votes which are informed are counted (maybe political aptitude tests or something), otherwise the whole process is susceptible to propaganda from interested third parties. A man who votes for conservative policies because his father did shouldn't be allowed to vote on them if he doesn't have any real understanding of them, since such a vote isn't informed and not truly representative. These are just loose ideas. I don't know if they're meant for discussion in this thread, Kylonicus, or if everyone is just stating their own dream government, but I can expand on some points if you'd like.

Actually, in terms of continuity, storyline, and overall general pointfulness, the books are quite poor. Parts of the third and fourth books completely contradict the earlier ones, and the fifth not only does the same again but kills off a central character of the fourth book in a footnote, and then devotes a whole second footnote to describing their partner's sadness about this (almost the whole fourth book was about their relationship). It just happens that all this doesn't matter, because the books are some of the funniest things ever created by man. Unfortunately, a lot of the humour is in the actual language rather than the dialogue or action, so any movie will miss out on a lot of it.

Gonna see it on Friday, it's my birthday too. Supposedly the film isn't amazingly funny, or at least not as funny as the book, and they've had to cut out large bits. What worries me is that I heard Disney made it, though maybe only in a peripheral part (I can't find the info online at the moment). Good choice for Marvin's voice actor though.

I don't know, in several hundred years' time producing an egg from the raw genes of two infertile humans and growing it out of the womb would be relative child's play, plus castration would mean no more undercover recreational activities (without mental drugs or apparatus anyway). :S Plus it would be better to have kids after the parents are already some centuries old, as they will likely be wiser and more able to spend time with their kids, making them better parents. There are just too many factors to make a judgement about immortality and stuff. I'd still sign up for it though, despite whatever changes. I want to see the year 3000 and laugh at the new-fangled modern video games as I play on my NES.

It wouldn't be very desirable at all. If it were restricted then the social impact would actually be worse than as in China now, as the period for which people are capable of producing children would have increased from some decades to an indefinate time. You'd have people who were only allowed to have one or two children over the thousand or more years of their life, which is only a tiny fraction. This isn't even considering the religious implications to some of controlling reproduction or unnaturally long life, and that some (most?) wouldn't want either. On the other hand, if there were no measures to reduce the birth date, then the human population would boom and become unsustainable, which is obviously unacceptable. It would take a lot of control on behalf of the people and the government not to let things get mad. It seems to me that if clinical immortality was successfully developed and applied there would have to be some redefining of basic human rights and morals themselves. Euthanasia might become legal as a form of death for those who otherwise would never die.

This sounds very interesting. You can bet I'd want it if it worked! Anyone who could pay should be able to do it, as the more money they score from the process the more they can put into research and development, making it cheaper and more widely available for everyone. If the government wants to pay for certain valuable people to undergo the process (scientists and whatnot) they can take at least part of the money from their pension schemes. As for overpopulation, I guess the only way to prevent that would be to restrict birth control until it was the same as the death rate due to accidents or incurable disease. It would be interesting in that case, having very few children and millions of experts in their fields. Children could have personal attention paid to their progress for the whole of their education up to and through university. Places used partly for education (universities) could be devoted almost wholly to research. Also, if the technology could be modified to work on other species, it could be used to, for example, sustain cows so that they could produce milk indefinately, or have chickens that never stop laying eggs.

I think that it needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Having been homeschooled myself for several years and having done normal education for about as much time, I'd definitely say that homeschooling was best for me. But I can easily see why some wouldn't like homeschooling or do well in it, one of the chief reasons being the social isolation. For example, I spent six years of my homeschooling in the country in southwest England, where the nearest village was a fifteen minute walk away. For the first few years my mother taught myself, my brother, and my sister, in a room which had been converted into a classroom, before the level of material advanced to a point where we instead started to study alone in our rooms. That's not a very social environment, and although we did go to weekly events by a group for kids run by a teacher, trips to community centres in a nearby city, and a few other things, we didn't get regular, daily interation with kids our own age. It just happens that I don't have a great social need so I did fine; others might have fared more poorly. Having fewer social opportunities at hand might also make the student more inclined to find friends on their own; for example, my sister took to using online MUDs for five hours a day (and unknown amounts at night). She made a score of friends, including her future husband, and was travelling around Europe for conventions when she was fifteen. On the other hand, homeschooling also allows students to learn at their own pace in different subjects, rather than that of the whole class. This depends largely upon the time and ability of the parents to educate their children themselves or to pay for a private tutor. One of the original reasons for us being taken out of homeschooling was that I was bored with stuff at my level and wanted to do harder stuff, but the schools wouldn't allow for it (I actually got effectively expelled from a Montessori school for helping other students too much, or rather doing their work for them—the management was changing and they didn't like deviants, long story). When we started homeschool my mother could devote full time to us, and she did follow the national curriculum, but it was modified in ways that suited us (my siblings and I) particularly. We also used computers a lot, more so than normal at the time, and CDs with basic courses proved very useful as preparation for GCSEs. Eventually I left the normal school system and slipped back in after my parents conviced our local state school to let me take my GCSEs and A-Levels two years early. In this case I was lucky, and homeschool stopped my interest in science and so forth from being stifled, though I'm glad I left when I did. If there had to be general cases, I'd say that homeschooling would probably be ideal in a small village without a school, since most kids will know each other and live nearby, or in cases where poor standards and an unpleasant social environment at the local school would be a bad influence on a child's development.

In the case of many different species being humanoid in appearance, this was explained in one episode where they discovered that the early galaxy was virtually devoid of life, and the one major spacefaring race of the time decided to seed their DNA throught the galaxy so that life would arise all over. Of course, sharing the same DNA from billions of years ago doesn't mean that intelligent species would keep arising in humanoid form, given the huge differences in evironment, history, and evolution on the planets. However, it's too expensive to invent a complete and unique biology, psychology, society, and history for every alien race you want to feature in a science fiction series, and if they did do it properly there's little chance the viewers would understand the slightest thing about them. So for the sake of story and comprehension, most "aliens" in Star Trek are just humans wearing makeup.

I'd would have to have been Star Trek: TNG for me, having watched it since I was about this big: |<--->|, and being homeschooled, so that we were able to learn about things that interested us rather than do fingerpainting. Also, there was this cool poster with planets on it beside my bed that I used to look at sometimes, and a rock collection I got for my 6th birthday, and Bill Nye the Science Guy (that show was awesome). Maybe I was a bit socially underdeveloped, as I couldn't even name the four Power Rangers (or was it five?), but at least I knew what a Heisenberg compensator was, dammit!

Erm... damn. :/ I was under the impression that just as one could multiply by zero but not divide by it, that one could divide by infinity but not multiply by it. I'm beginning to think that the only valid proofs of the whole 0.999 repeating = 1 thing are those which make a point to leave infinity out, and tend to be difficult to understand by those without a background in mathematics. If I may ask one thing, matt grime: would you mind explaining the last line in your proof in post #23 in simpler terms if possible? (Then |x_n-y_n| = 10^{-n} hence in the reals, which is the completion of the rationals wrt euclidean distance, the limits are equivalent.) I can follow the proof up to this point but I'm just not sure how the result shows that they are equivalent. If not I'll just grab a book and check for myself, but others might be wondering too, and your proof seems the best I've seen so far.

Okay, I'll post one of the proofs for you (although it's probably already been said two or three times in this thread in much better form than I could reproduce it). Let's say that 0.999... recurring is the sum of a geometric progression. This is pretty easy to demonstrate: if the first term, a, is 0.9 and the ratio, r, is 0.1, then the progression will be 0.9, 0.09, 0.009, and so on, and the sum will be 0.999 (which is just my way of writing 0.999... recurring). This has already been written mathematically in other posts by people like dave, but I can't figure out the LaTeX well enough to reproduce it without quoting and I don't fully understand the terminology anyway. Here's the formula for the sum of a geometric series: In the case of 0.999, n equals infinity, so the term rn is actually 0.1infinity, which is zero, and (1 - rn) simplifies to 1. So the formula simplifies to this: Substituting the values of a and r in (0.9 and 0.1 respectively), we get this: and so if the math is all right it looks like the sum to infinity of the series, 0.999, is equal to 1. The only thing I can see wrong with this proof is the assumption that 0.1infinity does equal zero and not just some ridiculously small number, though I'm not sure what else it might be, and falls into the "infinite zeroes means no endpoint" scenario again. I can't believe my first post after 2 months was in this stupid thread again...

It sounds like a sort of Austin Powers/No One Lives Forever type of thing would be good, but replacing the 60's references with science ones or some such. Lots of secret agents and ninjas and scientists, and aliens if possible! Aside from that though, and you'll excuse me if I go into writer mode here and offer some constructive (or perhaps destructive) criticism... but I don't think there should BE a plot. There should just be an initial situation (evil takeover plan, alien invasion, world war, etc.) and a set of characters who could do something important in it. Laying down the plot now will cause problems later when we inevitably find better, more natural ways for the story's course to develop, as plot tends to restrict characters and make them do silly things, given their personality and psychology, and rarely all fits together with one sitting's consideration. I mean, we all know that Sayo wouldn't do what every other evil genius does and feed the captured YT dinner, spilling his plans in the process, before putting him into the shark (or scorpion) pit, thus giving him a chance to escape; he's going to go straight for the brain probes. The only problem with that somewhat more realistic event is that the main character dies and the story ends. We also shouldn't push to have a new chapter out every night, as that puts a lot of pressure on the person who writes it and would probably make the writing itself of poorer quality. One chapter a week is a bit more realistic (I'm assuming about a 1000 words, mind you), and gives time to revise the chapter and check it for consistancy with the previous ones.

Ahh, why do I have to be the babe's mom? I should be something similar to what I was in the member project... the grumpy female scientist who bosses people around and gets into arguments with her colleagues (maybe JaKiri) and loudly decries her abstinence among the men to cover up the fact that nobody wants her. I go to the bad side with secret information, only to get attacked by ATM the Ninja Monkey and then crushed by falling rocks when the SEAL team led by YT storms Sayonara's evil lair!

SFN has one of the best layouts of any forum I've ever used, so I'd have to vote for the first option. However, there's one suggestion I might make, just to add to the conversation. A percentage tally for posts in different sections would be interesting (if possible and not difficult to code), which would be a chart in their profile with numbers of posts in each forum, perhaps with a percentage score beside it. Someone who made 3 posts in General Discussion, 2 posts in Physics (probably best to count posts in the science sub-forums into their main forum), 2 posts in Politics, and 1 post in Philosophy & Religion would have a chart like so: General Discussion - 3 posts (37.5%) Physics - 2 posts (25%) Politics - 2 posts (25%) Philosophy & Religion - 1 post (12.5%) the purpose being that people would know which sections others post in the most, which might be helpful to some or just interesting to see.

Certainly, and it was the sense of immersion that Half Life gave that earned it some 50 Game of the Year Awards, helped along by Freeman not speaking at all (though Valve was originally going to have a voice actor, but didn't like any of them, until someone suggested not having him speak). But conversations and dialogue in a film about Half Life would alter the storyline, so it wouldn't be the Half Life that people know and—even if it were a good film in its own right—it would disappoint people. You could either have a terrible film that is Half Life, or a good film that isn't. If Half Life were untouched (as in the case I gave) it would be a terrible film, and if it were made well (storyline changed and so forth) then it would be like the Phantom Menace of Half Life, i.e. new story and setting which just isn't the same as the original. What happened to GIR?

I'm sorry to say it but I can't imagine a film based on Doom being very good, because if it were like Doom then the film would be mostly running around shooting hordes of aliens, which gets tired pretty fast, and if it wasn't then it simply wouldn't be Doom. You could say the same about Half Life, since a film with one guy who never speaks running through Black Mesa for ten hours would be terrible. It makes a great game, just a terrible movie. On a similar note, they were going to be making a Deus Ex movie, but that thankfully never happened. I say thankfully because Deus Ex had a good storyline which would have worked well as a film, but it was far too long for anything but a trilogy, so they would have had to cut out most of the storyline... and also because the film was going to contain Eminem in a possible acting role. I... also admit that I've not played much of System Shock 2 (what I did play of it was restricted to multiplayer co-op with my brother on a system that crashed a lot), and I'm waiting for my brother to come visit our place so that I can nick/borrow his. Deus Ex derived a lot of its gameplay from System Shock 2 and Deus Ex is my favourite game, so I will get it eventually. Really!

Robert A. Heinlein, for my favourite novel (Stranger in a Strange Land) and my favourite short story (The Long Watch).