Voar Tok

When did you join ST and what convinced you to sign up? Ryan: I've been a member since the beginning. I joined up because the clubhouse was dying and I didn't want to lose track of my friends from that site. Dirk made me a moderator of an early SimCity 4 forum and then an admin of simtropolis when the site launched. Sam: I started playing the game, and looking around the fansites. I joined early in Simtrop 2.0, a few months after the site launched. I really liked the way that Dirk, Ryb, SimJez, Hodges and Golfbunny interacted, it was a good forum and they had fun - that’s pretty much why I signed up. Rybolton - could you tell us a little about the clubhouse. What was it like? The clubhouse was the first online community I ever joined. I was looking for strategy and information for Sid Meier's SimGolf and noticed it in the fansite links on the official site. What made it so attractive was the sense of community and good fellowship. There wasn't any cursing or fighting, everyone seemed to respect one another. It was unique in that regard. I still don't find many sites that have accomplished that. How long have you been administrators here at ST? Ryan: Forever... Sam: About a year and a half. Have you ever had any other positions as staff? Ryan: I haven't. Sam: I've been a chat op and a moderator at simtropolis Samantha - did you ever have any parts that you enjoyed about any particular one of those posts? I really enjoyed getting to know the people responsible for making simtropolis. Helping out was fun and getting to know the members was a blast too! You just recently were involved in a move to another city for promotions. How did that work out that you were both promoted to the same city at the same time? Sam: Ry was offered a promotion, which was great - but left me a little stuck. My HR director suggested that one of the clinics could use my help. I applied and got the job as assistant manager. It worked out well, but took some coordination! Speaking of jobs, what do you two do for a living? Ryan: I manage a small office for a financial institution Sam: I help manage a local dental clinic. What part of being an admin do you prefer the most? Ryan: I've always liked handling the tougher issues that Dirk has to deal with. When Dirk has had to remain diplomatic, I've been able to speak my mind. I tend to enjoy taking out the trash, if you get my meaning... Sam: I've enjoyed making strong friendships with the other admins and members of the site. I've met so many wonderful people at simtropolis, some I'll know for the rest of my life, and others I'll remember with fond memories. Any particular places you like to hang out when you're browsing on ST? Ryan: I like the chat room, though I haven't been around much. I also check up on threads in the simtrop related forum to find out what’s going on. Sam: I like off topic and simtrop related the most. When and how did the two of you first meet? Ryan: We met in the chat room at simtrop the first time. We traded msn information and photos about a month later. We were both playing Simgolf at the time as well as SC4. I was making Simgolf mods and Sam actually requested one from me. That might have been our first encounter at the site. Sam, you were living in the UK at the time, correct? That gives a new meaning to the term "long-distance" relationship. Hehe, yeah - the phone and internet are wonderful! We still got to see each other everyday, and talk before falling asleep. What part did you guys have in the creation of simtropolislovesdirk.com and where did the idea come from? Sam: simtroplovesdirk was the brainchild of GouRou really, thats where the inspiration came from. Gou did all the programming kind of stuff, Ryan helped with graphics and design, and I worked mostly on content and approaching people for their comments. It was a fun time, and we gave Dirk a real surprise! Rybolton, what was the inspiration for proposing to Sam on ST and not doing it privately like most people would do? Well I decided to make it very meaningful to both of us. I figured that I should ask in front of our extended family and since I couldn't afford to take simtropolis out to dinner I just asked in the forum. Sam: He did actually propose twice, there was a private occasion...I came home (to the States) to a bedroom filled with red and pink helium balloons...and a huge pink carebear, with an engagement ring on a ribbon around its neck. When were you two married? Sam: January 26th 2005 What kinds of things do you like to do in your spare time when you're not on ST? Ryan: We enjoy traveling and seeing new places. We both love roller coasters so we're planning a winter trip to SixFlagsMagicMountain. Sam: We actually live next door to the most beautiful gardens, so we enjoy walking and picnics there now that the weather is getting nicer. Any particular places that you've traveled to that you wish you could go see again? Ryan: The San Juan Islands are beautiful and we both enjoy visiting there. Its one of the few places we keep going back to. If you could only three roller coasters again, which would they be and why? Ryan: If I were able to visit only 3 roller coasters in my life I'd have to ride X at MagicMountain, Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point and Nemesis at AltonTowers. I haven't yet ridden any of them. Of the coasters I've ridden, I'd say Great Bear and Storm Runner at HersheyPark, Viper and MagicMountain. Sam: I'd just go ride whatever Ryan wants to ride but I'm looking forward to our trip to MagicMountain later this year. Besides SC4, what other games do you like to play? Ryan: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is awesome! I usually enjoy FPS games but I've played and enjoyed The Movies, Civ4 and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 recently as well. I also own a PSP so I play a few games on that too. Sam: I'm currently playing Super Princess Peach and The NEW Super Mario Brothers on my Nintendo DS. I play The Sims 2 and the expansion packs. Do you ever play against each other? Ryan: We have before. We used to play America's Army together with my clan. That was before she was in the US and we had to start sharing a PC. Before we wrap this up, is there anything you would like to say to the community? Ryan: I'd like to thank everyone for being supportive when I needed them and for being good friends. I think of almost every simtrop member as a friend or a friend I've yet to meet. Sam: I'm very grateful for everyone that I have met on Simtrop, my husband, and all my close friends. It’s been an awesome few years, and I know that this community will continue to amaze me for many more years to come! Cheers!

JanYpe: The issue with the regulation is not that it doesn't exist. The energy industry in the US is regulated quite heavily. The problem is that the regulators weren't doing their job. When BP had their Texas City accident, there were regulations on the books before saying that they couldn't have offices right next to blowdown stacks, but BP did it anyway. And the government didn't bother to stop them. That's the exact same thing that happened here. Nonny Moose: Love it or hate it, the law of the sea isn't the same anymore. The only way that the skipper is truly the head of the ship is if he owns the ship. If the ship is owned by a company, he's nothing more than mid-level manager and no more in charge than the head manager at Best Buy. Barbarossa: Another reason why people are hating on BP is what sort of compensation packages BP is offering. For example, BP was (may still be) offering people a paltry $5,000 in exchange for not suing them. Then they wondered why it is that no one wanted to take that offer. Just about everyone and his brother who has any connection to seafood is going to be suing, and BP seriously thought that people would be interested in such a small amount.

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose Originally posted by: Easy Bakes Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose Originally posted by: Ilikeseattle Transocean should cease to exist.quote> Why? They are only as much in this soup as the other corporations involved. The main punishment will be dealt out to the captain of the ship, who will probably lose his master's certificate. The corporations will be held relatively harmless because of the limited liability of share companies. Their insurance companies will take the big fiscal hit and this is limited by the terms of the policies. Governments will be left with the remainder. .quote> That depends who you belive, and what evidence comes out implicating BP in overriding the onsite personals decisions. Acording to interviews from the survivors there were decisions made by BP that violated safety procdures. quote> It doesn't matter. The captain is responsible for everything and everyone on the ship. Decisions made by others and not countermanded by him have his approval. quote> This isn't the days of aquatic glory where the captain went down with his ship. Nowadays, the captain is only as responsible as the entity that owns or controls the ship will let them be. There is no way that the captain could have gone up against BP and said that the safety valve that was supposed to stop oil flow in the event of an accident was broken and that he was going to shut down the rig or else until it was fixed. BP would have just fired his ass and put someone new in there. And yes, BP should be in a heap of steaming you know what after this because of what they did. The main blame falls with them and honestly, I would love to see something drastic happen to them - like being banned from drilling or refining in America or something like that. The reason why people are so pissed at them is because in only five years, they've had 26 fatalities from explosions resulting from faulty equipment that should have been fixed, but BP said to hell with it and ran the equipment anyway. You would have thought they might have learned something after they just about blew Texas City off the map.

Swine flu and regular flu aren't the same thing. That's why they have two separate shots for it. Although, having had swine flu already this year, I can say that the cure is worse than the disease.

Originally posted by: Kryptowhite Been there, done that. Fun disease. Got out of school for 5 days. Go Swine Flu!quote> I got swine flu. Really, it's not that bad. No worse than regular flu. The only issue is that there isn't a vaccine just yet, so everyone was causing mass pandemonium when it came out last year. The key is to get to a doctor the minute you are sure that you have the flu. They'll write you a prescription for TamiFlu, which, if taken in the first couple of days of symptoms, really works wonders. The doctor I went to told me to go home and stay there for a week. One of the best weeks of my life. The CDC has estimated that as much as 50% of the US population with get some variation of the flu this year, but I think the bit about 90K people dying from it is over-hyped. Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but I'm not aware of any cases of swine flu actually killing anyone in the US so far.

Originally posted by: Barbarossa Originally posted by: Voar Tok Personally, what I'd love to see everyone do electronic copies of is textbooks. Check this out - no distribution cost, no printing cost, and you never have to worry about returns. I hate electronic textbooks for reading, but that's why I print them all out. I bet I don't do any more damage to the environment printing mine out than they do printing out their copy of it.quote> I agree that it would be nice and I think it is definitely worth consideration. It will certainly alleviate some financial issues for students. My only reservation being practical logistics. Sometimes the book is needed in class, sometimes conscientious students need to review something on-the-fly, sometimes a PC is just not available, and then there is the omnipresent idea of tactile benefit. Everyone learns in a different way: OJT (on-the-job-training), visual, and auditory. Regardless of those, this is definitely worth a try.quote> Well, if you think about it, you can pretty much solve all those problems with electronic textbooks. If you need it in class or you know that you're going to need to be able to review things on the fly, just print a copy. Odds are good that if you need to review something on the fly and you weren't expecting it, well, you probably don't have the textbook around anyway. I don't know any college students that just carry all their textbooks with them around on campus - usually only the ones that they need for that day. As for the learning preferences, well, nothing can replace on-the-job training, but when you get to the visual and the auditory, computers offer some benefit here. If you hate electronic texts, you can print them like I can. If you're an auditory learner, then you can have the computer read you the book (or something).

Originally posted by: Duke87 Originally posted by: Jezus53 The writer can do whatever they please with their work. Sure it seems weird to restrict your own work, but to see another company potentially make money off of your work is aggravating.quote> The point is that I, the end user, find it reasonable to have to pay for it, but find it ridiculous to have it simply be no longer available. For this reason, I've always said that all copyright on a work ought to legally surrendered upon it ceasing publication, and I still hold to that. Either keep selling it, or start letting people distribute it for free. Doing neither is insane. After all, if they're not costing you money by distributing it, why stop them? quote> Well, at some point, the item ought to become free, but the question is at what point. In the trademark world, a company loses the right to its trademark when the public adopts the trademark as the de facto name for the product, sort of how everyone calls tissues by the name of Kleenex. Usually copyrights expire after either fifty or one hundred years. Personally, I say that if the book is no longer protected by copyright, then it ought to be available for free. Maybe some nominal fee to put the book in a downloadable internet copy so there's at least some incentive from publishers to publish old books like The Prince for example. Personally, what I'd love to see everyone do electronic copies of is textbooks. Check this out - no distribution cost, no printing cost, and you never have to worry about returns. I hate electronic textbooks for reading, but that's why I print them all out. I bet I don't do any more damage to the environment printing mine out than they do printing out their copy of it. And to everyone - no one is saying that books shouldn't be available in a paper form. Like I said, I hate e-books with a passion, but they should still be available online for those of us who like instant gratification. Now, a question I have is this - when a publisher buys your book, does that mean that they still have to pay you royalties on your book for each one sold, or is everything said and done and any money they make is theirs to keep? For example, Hillary Clinton wrote an autobiography and her book was bought by a publishing company for $8 million. Since they bought the rights to the book from her, does that mean that they still have to pay her royalties or not? Because if they don't have to pay royalty fees anymore, that would be a great deciding point as to whether or not an out-of-print book should be available for free. In an ideal world, I'd like to see an electronic copy of every out-of-print book available on the website of the Congressional Library or National Archival service or something.

I would like to share this email I received about the actions that the government is taking in response to the bailouts. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves. Oh how true.

This is just amusing... British Airways asks staff to work for free It's going to be a while before the economy completely recovers. Honestly, in some regards, I hope it doesn't recover. The last time we had a major disaster like this, it was because the credit system was way too loose and people who didn't deserve the credit were still able to get it. Now we did it again. Think we'll learn our lesson?

Originally posted by: Barbarossa Originally posted by: manticorefan Originally posted by: Barbarossa I tire immensely of conservative philosophy regarding the world we live in. They continuously seek to impose their narrow mindset on the entire populace and have an intense dislike of viewpoints they do not share. Barbarossaquote> I know, those darn conservatives are the only ones who are like that. Unlike everyone else, who are just happy to accept any viewpoint they disagree with and never protest when things don't go their way. Liberals are always ready to vote for people who don't share their positions, right? I mean, the liberal POV is so broad compared to other POVs that it just encompasses everything, unlike those accursed conservatives. It's good to have others to use as a whipping boy, so we don't have to look at our own flaws and failings.quote> Although I know you are being sarcastic, your reply is essentially true, except for the last sentence. Which party is the most diverse? Which one is more engaged in civil rights? Which one believes in entitling different viewpoints to be able to practice their beliefs provately? Please do not attempt to make social conservativism better than it is. To approach this from a another side, look at examples. 1) I would not want my spouse to have an abortion, save in issues of health/development. So I guess I am personally anti-abortion. But I would never impose my POV on someone else, therefore abortion should be legal. 2) If I happened to be Christian, I would not promote prayer in schools, nor would I promote the teaching of religious doctrine in science classes, but only in a course that discusses all modes of belief. 3) I believe everyone should have access to healthcare. That does not mean it should be forced on everyone, but available to eveyone. 4) I'm not gay, but I support the rights of homosexuals to marry and would vote for any legislation that would legalize it. So... how exactly how do you think a social conservative would vote on these issues? 1) No abortion 2) Prayer in schools, ID in science courses 3) Private healthcare only 4) No marriage rights for homosexuals I think the facts speak for themselves. Barbarossa quote> Coming from a social conservative, let's see how I'd vote on those issues. 1) Abortion for health purposes is completely understandable. Although, there does need to be a point where abortion needs to have a reason other than not wanting the baby, because having an abortion when the only thing left to give birth to is the head deprives a kid of a life when the parents could have just as easily put the kid up for adoption. 2) No mandated prayer in schools. Just don't get upset if students would like to take a minute to pray, stretch, meditate, etc before classes or tests. As for science classes, I don't believe in macroevolution, but that doesn't mean I am going to through a hissy fit just cause they don't teach ID. Heck, my biology prof flat out told us that if we didn't believe in evolution, we weren't going to get along with him. I told him that I respectfully disagreed with him, but I wasn't going to expect him to change his teaching material to accomodate me. 3) I've never had an issue with having public healthcare running alongside private healthcare. Just don't try to socialize private healthcare. 4). Yeah - only problem with legalizing gay marriage is that you can't legislate the social stigma away. So, counting the votes up, you got a correct score of..... 0/4

Originally posted by: Duke87 Originally posted by: Ntq$310 well Duke it's just this. What do cars use? Gasoline, and oil product, what do airplanes use? a oil product, what do trucks use, a oil product. Now our trains also use some oil, but the question is how much.quote> ... Originally posted by: Duke87Cars do almost entirely run on gasoline (an oil product), but that can change. quote> I'll see your electric trains and raise you electric cars. quote> And I'll see your electric trains and cars and raise you an airplane that runs on vegetable oil. OK, not literally, since they've never taken the time to make one, but the point is that airplaine can run on anything that's liquid and combustible because they use turbine engines. Trains don't use much oil anymore if they are designed right, but train's aren't a practical replacement for the US right now. For people to really start giving up their cars, they need to be able to get from point A in a city to point B in a city more efficiently than many of them can. Mass transit sucks in the US.

Originally posted by: sneakeypete Originally posted by: Voar Tok The problem with HSR is that it's a wonderful idea that is completely impractical. It's jobs - yeah. Not all of the unemployed in the US are construction workers. On top of that, if you're going to spend that much money to invigorate the economy, why not just give all the unemployed people $50K with orders to spend it all in a year. You'll be spending less money and it'll be directly infused into the economy.quote> Because at the end of if you have nothing, whereas if you build HSR, or something, you'd at least have something for all the money spentquote> Oh, you'd get something for doing it the other way to. You'd get the money infused into the economy faster. $50K for a construction worker is kind of a lot, and on top of that, the money just given away can be given away with strings attached in traditional Obama style! Personally, I think that strings-attached money is some of the studipest stuff he's done and will do, but Obama will do what Obama wants to do, whether the justification is there or not.

The problem with HSR is that it's a wonderful idea that is completely impractical. It's jobs - yeah. Not all of the unemployed in the US are construction workers. On top of that, if you're going to spend that much money to invigorate the economy, why not just give all the unemployed people $50K with orders to spend it all in a year. You'll be spending less money and it'll be directly infused into the economy. HSR isn't practical for linking the US. It's like building an HSR line that links London to Baghdad. Also, they need to not do ten corridors like Yoman3 was saying. At most maybe link ten cities with their immediately surrounding major neighbor cities. I know this is going to piss some people off, but I'm sorry, cities like Kansas City, St. Paul, and Buffalo, to name a few, don't have enough economic clout to warrant having an HSR run to them yet. Houston, New Orleans, Washington DC through Boston, and California. That's enough to start the HSR on it's footing, and it'll have the biggest economic benefits for everyone.

I would like to clarify some issues that will probably present themselves before the misinformation begins to spread. (Seeing as how they are an issue on CNN.com already too). First off, the vast majority of Texans are not going to be in support of this. I'm a Texan, and proudly so, as well as a loyal American. The two are not mutually exclusive, and I'm not even close to being in support of secession. It's stupid. Perry is taking a page out of Sarah Palin's book and running his mouth because he's coming up for re-election and needs to try to establish some sort of relevancy with at least some contingent of voters. The vast majority of Texans think that he's one of the most irresponsible and ridiculous governors the state has ever had. There's a strong probability that he is going to be voted out of office when the chance presents itself, and he has to do something to try to look like he's got the backs of Texans. He's failing at it, but that's his plan. The ability of Texas to just legally leave the US is one that doesn't appear to be valid. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution doesn't provide a method of legally leaving the Union, however, Texas does hold the distinction of being the only state that has ever been it's own independent nation (the thirteen original colonies don't really count because they pretty much acted like a nation, albeit a disfunctional one, after the American Revolution). Texas does however have special legal privileges that aren't given to the other states because it was originally a nation before it joined the United States. Such privileges are things like being able to legally fly the state flag at the same level as the national flag. Also, this boils down to more than just "there's a black man in the White House!!!" sentiments. Obama has stepped on a lot of toes and has talked about, or already succeded, in subverting some of the basic ideas that the country was founded on. Remember the shirts that went around with a picture of Bush's face and the caption "Not My President." A lot of the non-Obama people are feeling the same thing right now. I'm one of the people that looks at Obama's presidential plans and cringes a little on the inside because of what he's talking about doing. There won't be a secession over this, but Obama is going to be more controversial that Bush was.

Wow, so I haven't been here anywhere near as much as I wanted to in the past eight months or so, and I low and behold, I got a Trixie for it! Thanks everyone and especially to the rest of the staff for their support and understanding!