MeFi comment:
"Nah, that's just a symptom. If you fill the forest with underbrush, by fighting fires with fertilizer-laced water, you will get opportunistic species that populate that vegetation. They're not the blame for the later, greater fires.
I agree..." [
more]
favorited 8 times, recently by Glibpaxman, aeschenkarnos, Senor Cardgage, drezdn, Navelgazer, Artw, the other side, drjimmy11
Almost 3 hours ago
MeFi post:
Proton-Powered Life
favorited 84 times, recently by aldurtregi, HiroProtagonist, vertigo25, banter, leviathan3k, parkan, alligatorman, mikw, louigi, lukemeister, pascal, jmd82, shadytrees, crataegus, chrismear, therubettes, justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow, Rashomon, Sandor Clegane, agregoli, Haruspex, Foolhardy, amelliferae, UbuRoivas, Amanojaku, joydrop, XcentricOrbit, Strshan, jock@law, SirNovember, lholladay, binturong, zach4000, heathkit, Caduceus, yeloson, paradoxflow, Bangaioh, Man with Lantern, six-or-six-thirty, Samuel Farrow, treepour, peep, One Second Before Awakening, krilli, Rumpled, utsutsu, gadavis, Joe Beese, notswedish, MasonDixon, rory, Anything, effluvia, GenjiandProust, jammy, elmono, ShawnStruck, Aversion Therapy, dng, haltingproblemsolved, fcummins, bluefly, Dumsnill, cj_, jeffburdges, the Real Dan, Earl the Polliwog, solipsophistocracy, orthogonality, heyho, Saxon Kane, Scattercat, sophist, Sticherbeast, clearly
more than 12 hours ago
MeFi comment:
""Reducing the number of timezones" has been translated incorrectly from the original Russian.
It would be more correct to say "making those people who live in inconvenient places get up earlier."
:-)..." [
more]
favorited 2 times, recently by acb, Garak
Yesterday
MeFi comment:
"As for the tank/dps/healer trinity, I've been trying to track down where those gameplay roles originated.
I think it really took effect in the MMO era, probably with Everquest 1. The entire reason for tank/healer/dps is because monster AI is..." [
more]
favorited 2 times, recently by WinnipegDragon, destrius
2 days ago
MeFi comment:
"Patents historically were intended to allow an inventor to profit from the invention for most of his or her working career, leading to the 17-year term. But the patented creation had to be fully described in the patent application, so that when it..." [
more]
favorited 9 times, recently by rongorongo, Kadin2048, aeschenkarnos, Electric Dragon, Joe in Australia, justkevin, marble, verb, bearwife
3 days ago
MeFi comment:
"Obviously, you should reason and negotiate with children, because they spring from the womb with their rational facilities fully intact." [
more]
favorited 10 times, recently by wenestvedt, bitter-girl.com, mikelieman, Jacqueline, BrotherCaine, nooneyouknow, kuujjuarapik, arcticwoman, mccarty.tim, dantsea
5 days ago
MeFi comment:
"You know, Jon Stewart's recent deconstruction of Fox News, while very funny, was also brilliant. He pointed out exactly how the bullshit actually works, in plain terms and without pandering to his audience.
Just because he's coming at it from..." [
more]
favorited 21 times, recently by misha, SouthCNorthNY, batgrlHG, lslelel, alteredcarbon, ShawnStruck, six-or-six-thirty, marble, JHarris, Monsters, adamt, hattifattener, The Great Big Mulp, dbmcd, elpapacito, lalochezia, notswedish, aeschenkarnos, Reverend John, ZenMasterThis, haltingproblemsolved
5 days ago
MeFi comment:
"One thing that they talk about in the voiceover commentary for Portal is that physics gets very, very weird around portals, and there are zillions of possible bugs and edge cases that can do evil things to the state of your game.
IIRC, Valve said..." [
more]
favorited 2 times, recently by homuncula, sidesh0w
6 days ago
MeTa comment:
"I should also point out that in very long threads where I arrive late (which happens more and more as MeFi gets busier and busier), I regularly search for the word 'favorites', just to pick out comments with more than one. Typically, if a comment..." [
more]
favorited 3 times, recently by double block and bleed, fearfulsymmetry, Joe Beese
9 days ago
MeFi comment:
"When I was three, my mother said to me
Eat up your greens and say your grace
While on TV they put a dog in space
And left her there
Should have seen her face-- Moxy Früvous,..." [
more]
favorited 2 times, recently by WinnipegDragon, ooga_booga
11 days ago
MeFi comment:
"It's kind of blowing my mind that you could believe all the crazy that scientology wants you to believe and then choke on the relatively mundane and common (although just as wrong) opinion of gays.
Eh, I dunno. The whole..." [
more]
favorited 14 times, recently by problemspace, like_neon, haltingproblemsolved, liquorice, sotonohito, mrgrimm, god hates math, Joey Bagels, lalochezia, discountfortunecookie, movicont, hattifattener, rottytooth, emperor.seamus
12 days ago
MeTa comment:
"On the whole: I don't like the idea. I thought the old system was fine. From my perspective, we're losing valuable information for no real benefit. But let's see how it plays out.... that's what experiments are for.
Oh, and as to the various..." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by smoke
12 days ago
MeFi comment:
"The primary driver of the three asset manias we've had (stocks, real estate, and debt) has been an excess of cash from the original source, the Federal Reserve. Somewhere in the mid-90s, the Clinton administration redefined the measurements of..." [
more]
favorited 4 times, recently by zpousman, smoke, davemee, autopilot
13 days ago
MeFi comment:
"Looked at from another angle: these bubbles were obvious at the time, and it's the Federal Reserve's primary remit to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Whether or not you agree with the causation argument, it's quite clear that they have..." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by five fresh fish
13 days ago
MeFi comment:
"Count me as another Wind Waker fan. I loved that game. The cel shading was awesome, and the atmosphere was first-rate. There are some visual shots (like the frozen monsters on the chessboard) that were stunningly awesome.
I can totally see why..." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by marble
2 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"Any creature that can grieve and go through death rituals for lost loved ones should be extended basic rights." [
more]
favorited 22 times, recently by pitseleh, Kattullus, hazel, RedEmma, every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes, Space Kitty, mccarty.tim, brand-gnu, d13t_p3ps1, jammy, orthogonality, MXJ1983, sebastienbailard, HopperFan, strixus, treepour, ltracey, six-or-six-thirty, M.C. Lo-Carb!, maxwelton, Joe Beese, Richard Daly
2 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"This is probably just a technical thing. If you lay out your maps so that they fit in a nice clean rectangle, then you can jam all the maps into a single block of RAM in the cartridge. As Link moves around, you just change the X and Y index..." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by migurski
2 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"Not directly related to programming, but an aside to that old canard 'knowing how long things take': Check out the Non-Deterministic Hardware section of this LWN writeup, a few paragraphs in.
Apparently, measuring hardware response times gives..." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by Monday, stony Monday
2 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"Wow, ChurchHatesTucker, that's almost exactly what I was thinking about. Note to self: read all links before posting." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by mduda
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"greasy Cheetoh fingers
That's something that keeps striking me repeatedly with these demos; we really want to have the same device be both input and output (touchscreen and display), but hard physical reality is that we are oily critters, and..." [
more]
favorited 1 time, recently by JHarris
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"This appears to be an issue of breaking election law, in that they're using SQL code (which is most emphatically interpreted code, in direct violation of some statute or other.) But from what I've seen of the actual code itself (very limited),..." [
more]
favorited 3 times, recently by Librarygeek, jedicus, problemspace
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"And the republicans were the ones who opposed using statistical modeling to estimate the true number
I think I'd rather have the direct count, myself, even if it's lower. Statistics can be bent in all kinds of strange ways, and given some of the..." [
more]
favorited 2 times, recently by JHarris, nooneyouknow
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"Sophist: it doesn't sound like this theory is very different,
Well, it's far advanced over the version I learned in school; there are specific metabolic pathways described, a description of how the scaffolding might have served as replacements for..." [
more]
favorited 3 times, recently by IAmBroom, Librarygeek, bendybendy
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"Further, it's worth pointing out that scientific results have accelerating returns; results from research this year allows further research next year, which allows even more research the year following. Particularly in a field this new, where we..." [
more]
favorited 3 times, recently by amelioration
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"Masses of people are losing the plot of civilization, getting lost in their own fantasy storylines.
This is true in an awful lot of disparate areas. We substitute wishful thinking for hard reality, because we're insulated from the details...." [
more]
favorited 56 times, recently by nudar, imabanana
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"When asked for his opinion on this monumental power shift in favor of liberty-minded Republicans
The fiction is that the voters replaced Democrats, to the tune of 17 Senators and 178 Representatives. But with "liberty-minded..." [
more]
favorited 3 times
3 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"I truly did not imagine I would see an African-American President of the U.S.
And that was only after GW Bush's disastrous Presidency. Then the Republicans ran Sarah Palin on the other side, and even at that, it was a very close vote.
I..." [
more]
favorited 2 times
4 weeks ago
Ask comment:
"We had an article on MeFi not too long ago about a guy who just turned off his Internet for a month; he just stopped using it completely. It was hard for him at first, but he talked about how he was quickly developing more patience and analytical..." [
more]
favorited 2 times
4 weeks ago
MeFi comment:
"But at least the bankers, stockbrokers, speculators and insurance industry executives can still affor to wipe their asses with wads of hundred-dollar bills, and THAT's why capitalism is GREAT!
That's not capitalism; that's corporatism. A..." [
more]
favorited 22 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"Be careful about what you wish for. When Obama was on the campaign trail, he insisted loudly that indefinite detention was against both American law and custom, and he fully intended to fix the problem once he took office.
He did indeed try to..." [
more]
favorited 18 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"They're not actually trying to link him to the crimes, cjorgenson, they're trying to point out how HE does hit jobs on OTHER people. You're supposed to figure out that it's bullshit, and then realize that Beck himself spews the exact same type of..." [
more]
favorited 5 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"shmegegge: what is it, precisely, that makes you think the character is only notable for "who they like to screw?"
The fact that the author took the time to write about the fact that he's gay and that his character is gay and gee that's..." [
more]
favorited 1 time
Last month
MeFi comment:
"You know, I'm really looking forward to the halcyon future where we don't care what consenting adults do in private, and gay gamers don't feel the need to Make A Point with their game-engine mods.
I guess I'm just tired of the whole..." [
more]
favorited 1 time
Last month
MeFi comment:
"I've had the sleep paralysis a couple of times, but never with associated hallucinations. Happened once when I was napping in my car at the park, waiting for a friend to get done with something-or-other. He totally didn't believe me when I told him..." [
more]
favorited 2 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"If you'll note, almost always with panics and crashes, you get an economic boom driven by false promises, via currencies that are not actually convertible for what they say they are. Then, as the boom peaks, it's discovered that the currencies are,..." [
more]
favorited 17 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"I dunno, it seems like there was a lot of gentleness in America when I was young, and we were consumed in self-doubt after Vietnam. For awhile, we were a pretty great country, because we distrusted ourselves and questioned our own motives.
The..." [
more]
favorited 1 time
Last month
Ask comment:
"A MeFite emailed me in a little confusion, asking me if it was necessary to also reformat after doing a zero or 7x wipe. At their prompting, I'm going to post an edited version of that response here.
************
Hi there. :) Short answer:..." [
more]
favorited 47 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"Wow, talk about the real message whooshing past overhead. It's in plain sight, right in the document:
[the US President] asked me directly to tell you that the United States would not do anything that might put at risk the security of the Soviet..." [
more]
favorited 33 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"Wow, remember just a few years ago when conservatives were foaming at the mouth, demanding that we liberals 'respect the office, if not the man'? Remember?
Jesus fucking christ...." [
more]
favorited 67 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"That means they cased the store ahead of time, probably walked through it a few times.
All Apple stores I've been in have had the exact same layout. You wouldn't even need to case the store you were going to rob!
One interesting bit is when..." [
more]
favorited 13 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"It's interesting how quickly things rot; it's been about 35 years, and it looks practically like a Civil War monument.
I've read somewhere that if the windows stay intact, modern buildings can last quite a long time, but if they're broken, the..." [
more]
favorited 2 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"It's a marketing ploy,
Of course, and with them donating 5 cents per lid, you're better off just buying yogurt that's 25 cents cheaper and writing a check to a breast cancer charity yourself. Cost to you is identical, but the charity does a lot..." [
more]
favorited 1 time
Last month
MeFi comment:
"I'm still working out what all this means, and likely will be for years yet, but it looks pretty much like an unmitigated disaster to me.
The entire bailout package has restructured the fundamental economy in a very, very unhealthy way. Just as..." [
more]
favorited 18 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"The Shuttle rollouts are done with a pair of immense, custom-built crawlers.
I love the Soviet/Russian solution; a train! It seems so obvious and reasonable, and so much less expensive. You could probably outright replace the locomotive every..." [
more]
favorited 4 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"One lesson here: if you make it hard to increase taxes, you need to make it equally hard to increase spending." [
more]
favorited 2 times
Last month
MeFi comment:
"This whole thread is a very great deal of data in support of Charles' Stross recent suggestion that empathy, mercy, and gentleness have been largely lost from the American psyche.
Even this bastion of liberalism is full of bloodthirst...." [
more]
favorited 1 time
Last month
