chris0101

The problem is that by its tile nature, SC4 is designed to favour grids, especially when you take into account the zoning difficulties with diagonal roads.

That's lighthouse tower if you want to download it.

Out of curiosity, for T-RAM in road, would an override be possible? Or T-RAM on highway (both elevated and ground with transitions to roads, avenues, etc.) Currently, it is entirely puzzle based and that can be an annoyance when you want to put down a lot of tracks. My third request would be a double decker for monorail over road, much like elevated train over road.

Communication between the cities isn't that great. In fact, that is why there is the Eternal Communter bug. However, when x number of Sims go from city A to B, when you access city A and B, you'll see both the same number of Sims and in theory, destinations, unless you're dealing with the Eternal Commuter Bug.

I actually experimented with it. No crashes have occurred due to it. However, often, Sims go on the Big Dig and then come onto my city's main subway line, emerging from random subway lines completely far away.

Why on earth does Barrack Obama's birthplace have anything to do with his ability to run a country? If he was born in Kenya, fine. It is his ability to run a nation that matters, not where on earth he was born. It does not matter whether he was born on the moon. What matters is his leadership abilities. Going back on topic, you'll see goods made in places like Saipan stamped with the "Made in USA" logo. Often, goods in the modern world are made in many places and then assembled somewhere else. Who gets to say what nation it is made in? Typically, the manufacturer will put the nation that has the most appeal such as a developed country. Pretty much these days, the "Made in xxx" should be dismissed without further verification.

On average, the sun does warm up by about 10% every billion years, but this does not account for the temperature changes recently.

I'm in favour of it being enforced. Hym does have a point that data on the Internet can be hard to enforce, but it is not immortal as Hym says. Delete the original data on Facebook's servers, and do a search of it elsewhere on the Internet. Have those sites remove it as well. I think that given the nature of the Internet, a new form of global governance is needed, especially for things like international child porn sites. Basically, we need universal laws that can be upheld anywhere around the world.

Nice unique European feel there.

It's interesting really how the game loads. Does it load everything in alphabetical order? Like if a file starts with an "a" and a folder a "b", the file seems to get loaded first followed by the folder "b" and all the contents of b which are loaded alphabetically after "a". There are some porgrams designed to load the subdirectories first or the files first then the subdirectories. SC4 is different I guess.

Originally posted by: Barbarossa I, personally, think you should re-evaluate your example. 20-30 yrs is nothing in the scheme of weather and global trends that cycle for hundreds and even thousands of years. Don't get me wrong, though. I believe the environment is changing. I just want to point out to you that climate change is a topic that can cover millennia and decades do not accurately reflect the problem. quote> Very simply, you are correct in that human civilization, when we take into account the age of the earth (about 4.5 billion years) have been here for an eyeblink. However, when I said what I did, changes of this magnitude in 20-30 years is rare, if not unprecendented. Typically changes occur either slowly (which they do ... look at the time scales on Fukuda's graph, which itself is a geologically short time period), or instaneously (which they would if say an asteroid struck earth or there was a nearby - cosmically speaking - supernova). Changes of say 0.01 degrees of warming per decade are reasonable if you consider that since the formation of the Isthmus of Panama about 3 million years ago, the transequatorial current was cut off and we started to experience ice ages. However the temperatures that we are experiencing are rising at least an order of magnitude greater than that. Hence, I come to the conclusion that although nature may be making a small contribution, we are the main cause, as there are no more other logical explanations. Regardless of whatever is causing the emissions though, the consequences for the earth are very real.

Essentially, Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Only now, Microsoft is charging us full price if we want to upgrade from Vista to W7. Grrr.

Originally posted by: hym A fraction of the military budget? The non-war spending that the government does on the US military usually floats somewhere in the 650-750 billion range. NASA's most conservative estimates for getting humans to Mars is roughly $1 trillion, while more realistic estimates are somewhere between 1-3 trillion. That's not a fraction of the military budget; that's up to 4 years of absolutely no military funding whatsoever. Furthermore, that estimate is just for getting humans to Mars and back. Actually attempting to establish a colony there would cost trillions more. There is no way the US government can fund that. quote> When you add up the world's military budget and consider how many trillion have been spent, a fraction of that seems reasonable. It isn't going to be a couple of trillion over a year - it will be a many decades project. Given the state of the US government, you are correct that this will likely be an international effort. Which nation the astronauts come from will unquestionably of great controversy. However, I am more interested in building space colonies around places like the La Grangian points than anything else. Mars is a secondary priority to me. Furthermore, we should set up some sort of mining operation around the asteroid belt. Think there's a lot of iron on earth? How about balls of iron kilometres in radii? With our exponential expasion, our planet may not be able to support us for long. We need to expand at this point to survive.

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus I agree. To use my motto for teaching evolution in the Creationism vs. Evolution thread, "Teach the facts, not the controversy".quote> Unfortunately, that is not so easy. Religious groups view their religious writings as fact while the scientific community will view evolution, biology, and the general laws of physics (which prove the 4.5 billion year age of the earth) as fact. Indeed, the reason why controversy exists is because both sides view their facts as utterly irreconcilable with each other. For my part, being an agnostic, I view the science as fact until proven otherwise, which does not appear likely in the forseeable future.

Originally posted by: Eastwinn I've taken more than a few of these political compasses and some of the question are kind of vague, misleading or, well, stupid. See Wizard of ID's post on this page and Duke's on the first. They don't seem to represent libertarians very well, which is what I normally call myself. All of the tests call me a socialist, which is weird. First because socialism and libertarianism don't normally mix (not that they can't). Second because I've always thought of myself as a capitalist. I think the primary reason for the mislabeling is because of the corporate ethics type questions. They seemed to assume that because I think that companies doing X and Y is bad, I want to reform the government so that X and Y can appropriately be controlled. That's not the way I envision companies should be controlled -- companies should be controlled by the consumer.. they are the ones that buy the products and services after all!quote> There are such things as left wing libertarians. Perhaps Noam Chomsky comes to mind. As you pointed out, left wing libertarians can mix together. In fact, it appears to be what most people on the left today in the Western world are, left wing libertarians. The accusations of the right about the left being communist are entirely inaccurate for this reason - communists are authoritarian.

These compasses are largely arbitrary between left and right. Typically, it is because we already associate such positions with one side of the political spectrum that we assign these sorts of things. The left generally favours greater equality, social/civil freedom (although that is libertarianism), and looks at the power of the situation while the right generally favours economic freedom, a traditional society, and a general aversion to change. Libertarians favour anything that gives more freedom at the expense of anything else and authoritarians are the exact opposite.

Amazing isn't it, how much time people will put in to these debates. Religion remains a remarkably dividing issue these days, even with modern communications, science, technology, and the advances we've made since being cavemen.

Originally posted by: BBUUBBBBLLEESS i had a similar problem to this earlier today, although it was happening to my whole computer, so everything was going slow.... i guessed at it being that the harddrive was too full, so i just got rid of some games that i no longer play. everything, including SC works just like it did when i bought the computer. maybe its that....quote> While its true that spyware, bloatware and other stuff can slow your PC down, the difference is not that big. Do wipe out that stuff and get a registry cleaner. It does help, but it won't work any miracles. I'm experiencing similar problems and intend to download the nvidia 186 drivers. Hopefully they help.

Originally posted by: hym What you said may be more or less true, but there is an important fact that needs consideration. Most government agencies are not managed as well as they should be, and an estimated 25% of US tax income is spend on government waste (not including the amount spent on people scamming the government). Agency heads tend to not give a damn about managing their agency well so long as they get their yearly budget. Back in the 90's, the heads of HUD and Medicare were confronted by the fact that 10% of their budget was being spent on contracts that were blatant frauds. The response that can back from the agencies was that they felt they were doing quite well, that the 10% fraud rate wasn't something to be concerned about, and if Congress really wanted them to solve the problem, Congress needed to give them more money on top of their existing yearly budget. Now contrast this with credit card companies where if the fraud rate ever goes about 2/1000 of a dollar, the executives start demanding explanations for why the anti-fraud department is not doing it's job. Many federal agencies don't care that they actually run themselves well; all they want is their yearly budget and if the waste to the point that it is cutting into operations, they simply whine to Congress that they need more money next year. Private companies usually exhibit some level of care for what their customers think of them because they recognize that it's a matter of survival. quote> In that case, government should be reformed. What is needed is accountability. Government is an organization that experiences both the economies of scale and the diseconomies of scale to a greater degree than an private organization. Improving transparency, accountability, and systematically cutting off wasteful practices (emulate the successes of others when needed) will be needed. I often say this to people when they claim that our society's leaders (I mean both in the private sector and in government) are not ethical or honest. We get the people that lead our society that we deserve. Government people can be corrupt, can be seduced and bribed by special interests, and can waste tons of money or lie to get themselves elected. Private organizations can destroy the environment, cheat shareholders, set up tax shelters, do a ton of things at the expense of society, bribe our politicians, etc. Unless we are willing to hold everyone to higher standards of accountability and ethics, this is what we are going to get. Then why do I firmly advocate for government? Government, if accountable, if greater communications are facilitiated, etc. can eliminiate many of the diseconomies of scale while maintaining the economies of scale. Meanwhile, private sectors, although they do not have to eliminate the diseconomies of scale as much, will never have the economies of scale of the magnitude that government does. Add in the fact that a lot of the costs of the pricate sector like advertising, stock dividends, etc. do nothing to make the holders of their health insurance better and you have a ton of waste for the private sector. If you think about it, for a nation, maintaining optimal efficiency is also a matter of survival for government too. What happens in a war if resources are not efficiently managed? What about in daily life when inefficiencies threaten to break the bank, leading to massive deifcits that need to be taken in order to pay for all of the waste? Perhaps as a bigger organization, government is more able to resist these problems until they are severe, but the consequences of ignoring them are still there and very real.

Originally posted by: Ntq$310 chris0101: You do make many points in that large large post you made. However, it's very hard to read it when it has a very anti-business, anti-conservative, and anti-free market tone about it. Do you really think the issues facing our system can be traced to the fact that were more right-wing than other nations? Take a look at http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/images/edpercent.swf, as well other data ive seen. We spend more on Education than many European countries, yet our system still sucks. In 2001 we spent $1,780 per capita on education, second highest in the world, we also spend $8,701 per student these days, and many still fail, we spend, we spend, we spend, we spend, well here's something obvious, just spending aint working. quote> Do I think that the way American politics is run is responsible for this situation? Yes I do. Clauswitz once wrote that war is an extension of politics. Education is merely an extension of politics as well. How you teach your children is intensely controversial, and the ciriculum is set by political organizations, save in private schools, where the private schools set their own cirriculum (which is problematic, as there is often a lack of consistency, making it harder to standardize and measure quality). When any reforms are hostile opposed for political and ideological reasons, along with a dislike of intellectualism altogether, quality of education inevitably suffers. How much the US spends on education does not dictate quality of education. Do I think that increasing the education budget will radically improve qualiry of education? The answer is mixed. On one hand, many schools are in a state of disrepair, increasing salaries of teachers will attract better talent (in Finland for example, the top 25% of university students compete to be teachers, in the US, I am afraid that you'll find quite a few people from the bottom 25%), and will provide greater funding for things like scientific equipment, textbooks, etc. Competing with this is that there are widespread cost overruns in the system. Why does the US spend so much? Where does the money go? Compared to other nations, what is spent so much on per capita? Where does it get so few returns? Cuts should be made in those areas. If education budgets are raised, more money will end up being wasted as well per capita per year. Spending does not always work as you say. Why does it not work? Where did it fail? Where did it suceed? Nobody asks these questions. It is true that spending more is always a matter of diminishing returns at some point, but like it or not, you have to spend. Public spending mean that the rich will pay a bigger share, which helps the poor get better educated and may help them become from poor to something wealthier than before. The net result is good for the nation as a whole. True there will be people that will have to fill in those gaps, however, I would imagine that liberalizing the immigration policies and eventually replacing such undesired jobs with automation (when technology allows) will put an end to that. Recall what I said when politics is a problem. All reforms need money and time. In states like California, I would not be surprised, despite the budget problems, if there were more propositions calling for even more cuts to budgets that passed with clear majorities. Nobody likes taxes, but Americans in particular seem to resent paying such taxes, and raises, especially now could prove politically impossible. Add into the fact that to be conservative means that you wish to preserve the status quo no matter how flawed, and you have very serious barriers.

What a sad state our planet and society is in. Our best scientists say that the planet is warming and major changes ARE needed. Yet a few special interest groups, lawyers, and bribed politicians can convince people otherwise. The impacts of water are not understood, but water has a mixed effect. For example, clouds have a high albedo and during the day actually reflect heat from the sun away from the earth, while water vapour absorbs heat. However, that is no excuse to say that we should do nothing about the planet, as pouring more carbon into the atmosphere will do a lot of harm. The changes due to global warming are long term. Compare the weather from say 20 to 30 years ago and you will find that it is warming. What other explanations are there? Solar activity has remained constant. No major sources of carbon are being pumped by anything natural (ex: supervolcano, although that would have a cooling effect first), although as we warm the planet, more methane and other gases will be released by the soil, particularly in the permafrost in Siberian and northern Canada. The people who deny global warming should realize: you are gambling with the greatest thing that we have our civilization and our future. We are running the risk of a Permian era like extinction.

Originally posted by: CryptoQuick It's pretty sad how many vehicles are made in Canada and Mexico, to be honest; I wanted to buy an American-made car, but, for example the Ford Fusion is made in Mexico. I've heard good things about that vehicle, too. Oh well.quote> What's so sad about a car made in Canada? Our labour laws are on par if not better, as our environmental standards. (Of course, by that logic, we should all buy things made from Western Europe) Nobody is being paid $2 an hour or anything like that. Furthermore, most outsourcing is not from the US to Canada, it is from the developed world to the rest of the world where wages are lower, costs are cheaper, taxes are lower, and laws are more lax.

Problem Fixed - you are right Blue Lightning - putting the bridge controller in a folder starting with z seems to fix the problem. Elevated highways make the Tsing Ma bridge, the Akashi bridge is made with ground level highway, and I get about a dozen different options for ground high speed rail. Choco - there does not appear to be any problems with the network.ini file. I am using the latest version of the NAM and wiped out all previous files of the March 2009 NAM, so there could not have been any problems with that. Thanks a lot everyone for the help. Maybe we should make a sticky in the omnibus for anyone else that has these sorts of problems. Or perhaps in future iterations of the NAM, the bridge controller should just be installed in a separate folder with a "z" in front of it.

BTM is 400km /h with Simulation Z BTM, it is unchanged compared to normal monorail otherwise. (It's mainly cosmetic). HSR is the same speed too btw. Can't recall the RHW off the top of my head.

Originally posted by: SteveMSim The simulator will also take the Sims to the closest available jobs. If there are jobs closer than on the other side of the tunnel, the tunnel will simply not be used. A solution to get tunnels work is to put an industrial district on one side of a mountain range and the residential district on the other side and have tunnels run through the mountains. This also helps with isolating industrial pollution.quote> The simulator will take the jobs that require the least amount of travel time, or in theory, it should anyways (the simulators are of course imperfect). To get to further jobs, use the fastest means to transport (ex: monorail). Make sure that Sims don't have to walk far with mass transit, as that builds up time.