"A walk through the ocean of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet".
          - Deteriorata

You wouldn't want them to get vaccinated? Or have communicable diseases treated?

Did you work this out all by yourself or did you get help?

It's true that it is unique. Russians themselves say that St. Petersburg is half russian and half european. But I've also got russian friends I talk to, who are from Moscow, from small villages near the Ural mountains and other places within Russia.

You assume I was a tourist. I wasn't.

Russia is a huge country - the biggest on earth, in fact - and of course there are large differences between the various areas. I was in St. Petersburg as I said. It's probably one of the richer areas.

Russians don't care as much as we do. They separate private and business life a lot more strongly, from what I gather. Of course there's a lot of propaganda involved as well.

But you totally ignored that main argument I made. That no matter what you see Russia as today, compared to the very recent past it has improved dramatically, and those improvements started with Putin taking office. Whether its true or not, a lot of people see a connection.

Except for two world wars, a totally changed global economical and political environment and, oh yes, the EU itself.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe was a mess of countries all out for blood, with century-old hatreds and politicians just waiting for an opportunity to start a war. Which is kind of exactly what happened just a few years into the 20th century.

Yeah... it would be absolutely the same... keep dreaming.

A far faster response time than LCD, which means far less blurring. One of the outcomes of Oculus Rift testing is that motion blur causes a lot of motion sickness.

They've switched to a higher-resolution display with a much better response time and you think that causes "graininess and blur"?

I have a PSVita I use for an hour each day, which has a screen that's several years behind the technology going into the Oculus. It hasn't noticable degraded after a year.

It's not physics, it's chemistry; the current generation of blue OLED materials have an order of magnitude better lifespan.

Wow, you really took what I said and ran down a well with it right there.

Not everybody works in marketing.

I'll bet you're a blast at parties....

Cigarettes and other form of tobacco are problematic since you are SUPPOSED to get addicted to them following the manufacturers instructions, hopes and dreams. Alcohol, it can be argued, you are supposed to 'enjoy responsibly' (and only get addicted to if you have some form of mental or genetic deficiency).

Ka-CHING! *

* to all you young folk who have never seen a real cash register, that's the noise the device makes when it rings up a sale.

Silly question on a nerd site, you don't "prove" anything with science, and Jurassic park was a movie, not a scientific model.

Back then the short cut they took probably saved them weeks in rendering time, and as you say, came out looking realistic. A scientific simulation would be comparing real data points to the output, it would be able to identify the "handful of leaders" that initiate each manoeuvre of a real flock, it would definitely not be a bunch of lab coats looking at the pretty pictures and nodding.

Disclaimer: I like Crichton's stories too, but he tends to write in "false document" style and every story has the same "science gone mad" plot.