Because it presents the appearance of doing something to "protect the children" while not actually having to -implement- anything. It's warm conservative-feel-good legislatural mush.

from the Cervantes Institute of Reality Ignorance. The award, called "Tilting at Windmills" is awarded to the most impossible and pointless decision regarding governance.

Admittedly this was back-of-napkin math, but it additionally helps that I live in Soviet Canuckistan, so we buy our fuel by the litre :P

But then even if I strip my argument down, hit the theatre on cheap Tuesday, walk to the nearest theatre (which isn't too far), and just get a popcorn, I'm still paying more to see a crap movie than to play EVE for a month. Even moreso, I switched my subscription to be charged every six months, which offers a lower per-month cost. I'm effectively paying for the cost of -renting- a movie and buying some microwave popcorn and a 2 litre of coke. Economically, EVE (and any MMO at this math) is incredibly good entertainment for your dollar

If you're talking about entertainment justification, it's not overly hard to do. I think of the cost of playing EVE as being about the same as seeing one hollywood "blockbuster" per month. 15$ USD for the game subscription essentially boils down to the cost of a ticket at a good first-rank theater, popcorn, drink, and gas going back and forth.

Myself, I think I get a lot more entertainment out of EVE than I would going to see one movie in the theater a month

But then again, the First Foundataion had access to the cutting edge of Empire tech, such as it was. And the developmental freedom to build on that tech to make more miniaturized hardware...

Don't see dear leader's hut having THAT...

They aren't being hired in order to kill the global warming issue (that won't work) they're just working on getting enough FUD out there, murky enough water for them to get through their tenure as CEO and retire with an awesome severance package. It costs a company let's say 10 million a year to hire these guys and run their operations (number pulled from thin air), whereas for them to recognize the issue and go with the flow would mean billions of billions of dollars to realign their company. Any sane CEO looking out for his own rear will go pay the little bit to stall and leave someone else with the problem.

The only question is how long they can keep tossing the potato before it ends up being too hot and gets dropped in a lap

And what, twenty years ago you could say the same thing about China, probably even moreso. India has massive problems, yes. But they are problems that can be addressed, even better, dealt with in a manner far more farmilliar to western firms than in China. Twenty years ago, Chinese goods were invariably described as crap. Nowadays, the description varies from "meh, it's alright" to "they made that in China?". It all depends on which company is doing the manufacturing and how closely they watch their suppliers.

As for sweatshops, a large reason you've seen them dissapear to an extent in China and other countries is not government crackdowns (any country that has large amounts of sweatshops is invariably one that will not do more than token raids and legal pressure) but from the companies employing said labor because the public outcry about using said labor can be business-killing.

Give India the same capital and time that China got, and I'm certian that we'll see the at the least the same selection of quality. But with far more positive social benefits for India.

I'm always amazed about how ignorant people are about the system.

Yes, you do have a timed learning system, but you crucially forget that the time scales logarithmically but the bonuses are linear. You can spend a quarter the time skilling and achieve over 90% of the same performance as someone who's skilled for years. That last 10% can easily be made up by skill, some planning, or a friend.

The second thing is the obsession with T2 ships being OMGPWNZRS. You can credibly fight with a basic T1 frigate or cruiser for much lower cost and time investment. Hell, you can even make it a profitable proposition with some planning. Lost your ship? No matter, the insurance payout is more than the cost to buy and fit it! Can't do that with T2 in the least. T2 ships are specialized beasts. They do one thing and do it well, but at a penalty at doing anything else, and at a much, MUCH higher cost. You know what the most popular frigate is to go out and kick ass? It's the Rifter, a basic T1 frigate that you can be flying in less than three hours. With bad attributes.

Thirdly, guess what, there is only a fininte amount of skills that can help with anything. Myself, I have almost 70m skillpoints. Ooh I should be a combat monster. But I'm not. Most of it is industrial skills for manufacturing. Want to fly and make others die? You can have a character that can whomp me in less than six months by yourself. Fly with a friend and you can be in that same postion in perhaps a month.

But hey, what do I know about this anyways? I'm just a manufacturer....

Seconded on that. I buy hardcover Sci-Fi novels (certianly not mainstream like a Dan Brown novel), and regular price on them is around 38-40 CDN. And yet somehow, I can get a good fraction off that book if I have a club card. If I order it ONLINE (something that strips out the regular brick and mortar costs of sales and distribution) I can regularily save 40% or more from that price. And somehow the publishers and major bookstores aren't going out of business as a result. And just to really drive a nail in this coffin, one can always go to Baen's and see how they run a publishing house that somehow dosen't manage to implode...

Given that the ME1 exploration system was grappling with the Mako and getting to some of the deposits was a cast-iron nightmare and EASILY took longer than five minutes, I think the scanning mechanic is far better. Unless you enjoyed driving over jagged terrain that made your rattle like a can in a paint mixer...

Like paperwork and administration, a weapon as you see it is always a dead loss. Until something unexpected happens and you need proof, or in the case of the military, defence. You don't do it or support it all the time because it ALWAYS provides a benefit; you support/do it all the time because when something goes pear shaped out of your control, you have something that can deal with it/cover your ass.

So you're walking around on a 2d plane shooting and doing effects without having a hitscan in the environment? Interesting.

While the ship models in EVE are static (though gun turrets aboard do rotate), the effects they have to generate are considerably more intensive. Just about any activity you do in your ship will have some external visible effect. Repairing armor or shields will result in a visual animation over your hull or shields. Each gun that fires means a single effect just for that. Any remote support, ditto. A logistics ship can be remotely repairing 4-5 ships at once, with a visible effect for each seperate repair signal.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CCPGAMES#p/c/10838E1219A2EC16/5/JNFh1rgJ958

That's a link to one of the tournament fights that CCP put on between player groups. The client HAS been modified, but only to show the health of 20 ships at a time, broken into teams, and to remove the commentator's own ship UI. Other than that, it's legit. That's a small 10v10 battle.

EVE can handle over one thousand players in a single system/"zone". Places like Jita (THE trade hub of EVE) regularily pass 1300 concurrent active users at one time. In one star system. Admittedly though the vast majority of Jita players are "passing through" or conducting trade and not shooting each other in the face. Star systems out in the areas of space where players create their own empires can have fleet battles that push past 400 people per side, though admittedly there are occurences of heavy lag. In the past (IE one year ago or more) this would be instead extreme lag to the point of killing the node. In the last year however they have implemented heavy server and database optimizations that are pushing the boundary of stable large group combat higher and higher. I wish I could have better references, but I know several battles have been fought that were past 300v300 and were done with a minimum of lag (the reason I remember this is because of the comments wondering WHERE the lag was). CCP devs have also stated that they've just begun major DB optimization and they expect greater improvements to come. Of course, that's them selling their product, but they do recognize it is a major issue, and they ARE working towards correcting it. To turn the question on its head, how many people can a single WOW server handle, in one instance, in one specific zone? All PVPing against each other or providing remote support in one manner or another? Personally I'd be suprised if that number was any higher than what EVE is currently capable of.

To a degree, up here in Canada (lower mainland of Vancouver) the police already monitor power consumption of homes and apartments for marijuana grow ops. One thing that people don't notice/realize is that a grow op actually has a rather specific power signature. Homes with grow-ops are typically yearly rental/lease agreement homes. The growers themselves do not live at the property. The end result is a static high power draw that keeps the lights and hydropondics gear running 24/7. This is VERY different from even the most excessive of home power uses. Unless you're running a commericaial dishwashing/laundry/whatever out of your home that operates 24/7 you're going to have a VERY different bit of power consumption. Add on to the fact that it's not the only actual investigation technique. Grow Ops are typcailly seldom attended all the time, so some basic surveillance would reveal the difference between you being a power hog and you growing a crop in your basement.