ACEfanatic

Hmm, lets see... - Lostprophets - Start Something was the first album I ever bought, and Last Train Home is quite possibly one of the best rock songs ever written. - Modest Mouse - Their newest stuff (We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank) isn't as good as their old stuff, but I still find it incredibly catchy. Their early EPs and albums are some of the most strangely awesome music I've heard. - Muse - Newest addition here. Absolution was a brilliant, if depressing, album, and all the other songs of theirs I've heard seem to keep up. (Granted, I think Supermassive Black Hole is a bit overrated, but it's not bad.) Honorary Mentions: 30 Seconds To Mars, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, She Wants Revenge, Editors, Snow Patrol, The Killers, M83, Antimatter, Linkin Park, Incubus, Green Day, Flyleaf, Audioslave, RHCP, The All-American Rejects, Radiohead, Tokio Hotel, Submersed... and plenty more. As you can tell, I've got pretty eclectic taste. -ACE

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus Any military purpose at present... Antimatter is hard and expensive to make now, but in the future it will be easier to make antimatter. There will be need for big antimatter bombs for blowing up whole islands or countries and small ones, such as special grenades.quote> Need? Pray tell, why? Antimatter is ineffective as a weapon for the same reason that nuclear weapons are: the damage is huge, indiscriminate, and largely permanent. (It'd produce just as many radioactives as plutonium.) (Frankly, there are much more interesting projects that have weapons potential.) Also, I think people are misunderstanding where antimatter comes from. This isn't like uranium, that you can dig out of the ground and extract more energy from than you put in. Producing antimatter requires that you break apart sub-atomic particles; one of the byproducts of that is antimatter. It takes considerably more energy to produce than you can extract from it. Antimatter is, at best, an energy storage mechanism. And the only real purpose I could see for it is as a fuel for interstellar travel. But it would require decades (if not centuries) to stockpile enough. That's not something you'd do anywhere near Earth. (Any amount over a few kilos would do very, very bad things to Earth.) Anyway. All of that is largely irrelevant to the topic of this thread; antimatter is simply a byproduct of the experiments taking place, and it generally annihilates itself a few nanoseconds after being produced. -ACE

I still support the comet hypothesis. An aerial blast wouldn't give you a standard crater, it'd give you a massive fireball, and it'd do a nice job of defoliating everything within a hundred kilometers. -ACE

Originally posted by: Schmicky The history channel had a program about weapons - past, present and future weapons...and about future weapons, some scientists think the next type of bomb would be an anti-matter bomb. So im just thinking the goal of building this LHC could just be to create an anti-matter weapon. Can anyone say "Manhattan Project" number 2??quote>Heh. Antimatter isn't produced in that kind of quantity. We're talking quantum-level stuff here -- quark-sized stuff. (Hint: quarks make protons look big.) Antimatter--matter annihilation is the purest example of Einstein's equation E=mc2. But since the quantities of both matter and antimatter are so low (it's always a 1-to-1 ratio) you get exceptionally little energy out of it -- less than it took to produce the antimatter in the first place. Now, if we could produce antimatter on a larger scale, that would be different (a milligram or so of anti-lithium would have about the same yield as a modern nuclear warhead.) But the energy required is extreme. (And frankly, there's precious little advantage to using antimatter over standard nuclear warheads -- the magnetic bottle to contain it would more than make up for the mass difference.) Anyway. Really, there's no inherent threat from a particle accelerator. The idiotic media likes to say there is, because, y'know, destroying the universe is cool. The only reason there's not been a massive rebuttal is that this is a largely unexplored and unknown area of physics, so there's not enough data. Also: Duke87 wins the thread with xkcd. -ACE

Originally posted by: wozzar If it has online activations and limited amount of activations i will not be buying it. I refuse to buy any games that require online activations and restricts the users who genuine gamers not pirates.quote>Sure. Even given my occasional full-system re-installs, by the time I run out of activations, I have no doubt a cracked version would be floating on the net. Still technically illegal, but if EA get their money, and I get the game, no one loses. (And I personally don't consider it piracy if you have purchased it previously.) -ACE

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy supposedly having the moral high ground quote> Please.....America lost that a long time ago. Some Americans still believe they have it though.quote> Thus... "supposedly." -ACE

Originally posted by: Yoman3 Depends on the situation really. In a dense urban environment they aren't nearly as effective I agree, but all weapons are degraded somewhat. In open ground however they are much more effective. And by Pocket Nukes do you mean suitcase nukes? Think thats the Russians. EDIT - Smallest American warhead ever was the W54, for the Davy Crockett recoiless rifle. Small enough to fit in a suitcase. And a backpack version was made.quote> "Pocket nukes" was an exaggeration. No warhead has been produced at that scale. (The nuclear artillery shell is small enough, yes, but incredibly heavy. Realistically you'd need something in the range of a .5 kT payload, which is not possible with traditional plutonium fission bombs.) ------ Anyway, yes, cluster bombs are effective on open ground, but the only times modern war is fought on open ground is between highly organized militaries. I can only think of four nations which would fight us on those terms, of which two have the technological base against which cluster bombs are useful. (Honestly, high-yield bombing is more for anti-material use than anti-infantry. Bit of a waste of munitions otherwise.) It's neither humane nor ethical to use cluster bombs, just as it isn't to use landmines. You're not only killing innocents directly, you're leaving the battlefield contaminated with derelict explosives that could kill people months, years, even decades after the war is over. How terrible would it be to live somewhere where a wrong step could lead to you losing a leg, and arm, or your life, for no fault of your own? I'm deeply disappointed that the US is not a signatory of this ban. What's the point of supposedly having the moral high ground if we fail to pay even lip-service to it? -ACE

Originally posted by: SkiGeek Originally posted by: screamingman12 Originally posted by: SkiGeek You're implying the sole purpose of drama and the arts is to make it huge and become rich. quote> No, I'm implying that everyone has bills to pay. I have a question: how is this different from shoplifting? quote> Because when you shoplift, you actually take physical property form somebody, when you pirate music, the person who bought the CD still has it.quote> So the rationale here is that there is no such thing as intellectual property?quote> Nowadays? Not really. We're quickly coming to a point where information and data are, by their very nature, free. The sooner media corporations come to realize this and adjust their business models accordingly, the sooner this becomes a non-issue. (And for the record, I'm a writer -- so I have a vested interest in IP rights.) -ACE

Originally posted by: Yoman3 Are just arrogant, countries aren't going to stop using a third of their arsnel and some of the best weapons because in the words of another man quoted, John Pike, "a treaty drafted largely by countries which do not fight wars." quote>Erm, Yoman... Cluster bombing is actually not a very effective technique. Especially in the current war, where targets and civilians are almost always in close proximity to each other. You kill innocents and waste a lot of munitions doing so. Guided munitions are more efficient at eliminating their target, and produce less collateral damage. My thoughts? If you don't know exactly where the bad guy is, you really shouldn't be trying to drop bombs on him. I hope the US eventually signs this treaty. Between bomblets and landmines, we might as well be using pocket nukes--we're leaving the battlefield just as uninhabitable. -ACE

Originally posted by: SkiGeek I didn't read the whole report but, if you scroll down to page 20 on the PDF file, it gets to what (I believe) the motivation is: who can own the patent of genetically modified plants. I think someone is trying to give plants "rights" to weaken the ownership of patents of genetically modified plants.quote> This. Give plants 'rights' and you destroy patents for gene-mod plants. Doing that does two things: - increases availability of GM plants - kills major GM companies Former before latter, of course. This isn't a "rights" movement in the traditional sense. It's a economic play. -ACE

Good luck. As you said yourself, creating an accurate, aesthetic city is a lot of work. I doubt you'll find anyone willing to share one. In the event you did, the logistical issue is staggering. You'd need every BAT, Lot, and Modd used in the city. My plugins folder, despite being compressed, trimmed, and relatively small, totals almost a full gigabyte. Most CJ's have files into the 2 - 5 GB range; ergo, something like e-mail wouldn't work. Rather than wasting your time, I'd suggest working on a city of your own. Not only is it more rewarding, you'll also know all the quirks and issues of your city. And it'll be your vision, not someone else's. (Creating a city "as it really is" is still an interpretive art in SC4. We don't have the tools available to for wholesale recreations.) -ACE

A single tile is 16mx16m. A small city (64x64 tiles) is 1024m^2 (1.024km^2). A medium city (128x128 tiles) is 2048m^2 (2.024km^2). A large city (256x256 tiles) is 4096m^2 (4.096km^2). From this, you can reasonably round to: small = 1km^2; medium = 2km^2; large = 4km^2. Then just use the map scale to find whatever distances you wish, and convert them into tile distances (if you round down, use a 10m^2 tile for continuity.) -ACE

As someone who's 18, a senior, and who's succeeded in squandering his four years in high school, my advice is this: First, the social side of things: - Relax and enjoy yourself. These are your last four years before you're essentially on your own. Take advantage. - Experiment. Talk to people you normally wouldn't. One thing I've found is that most people are not as aloof as they seem; they're just as nervous as you are. - Make friends with upperclassmen -- not enemies. - Take care who you trust. The only thing about my years of high school that I'd call an absolute negative was losing a relationship to naive trust. - Whenever possible, avoid a fight. A sharp wit is more effective anyway. - Don't get stressed looking for a serious relationship. They're rare, and when they do happen, they fall right into your lap. But do look for *a* relationship. It's an important basis for social skills. (I'd also like to point out that going from longtime friends to dating is a dangerous move. And I have the scars and pills to attest to that.) And academically: - Honors/AP classes are great -- but only take them if you can get high C's or above. Despite what counselors tell you, an A or B in a standard class looks better than a low C or D in AP. - Take as much advanced math as you can. Calculus is a required course in almost all college programs. I'm taking Calculus now, and I can tell you -- it helps to have some idea what the hell you're doing. - GPA usually takes precedence over SAT scores for college applications. - Take the SAT your Junior year, if possible, so that you have a chance to re-take in your Senior year. - Don't worry too much about college until second semester of Junior year. Any screw-ups in Freshman or Sophomore years are easily remedied. And again -- enjoy it. This doesn't come back. -ACE

WinME. Having had to run a PC with ME for three years, I can attest to it being the most unstable operating system ever built. I've tried hacked-together alpha test Linux builds with more stability. On the other hand, Vista is equally annoying. I don't run it, personally (which is why I voted ME) but my grandmother's new computer came with it installed. Being the resident geek of the family, I got to be her tech support. When setting the clock requires five confirmation screens, something is wrong. I like to tinker with my OS, and with Vista that's impossible. In fact, Vista makes a lot of things impossible. And the things it makes possible, Linux beat them to three years ago. -ACE