Here's another example of the straw man.

You're claiming that the Laws of Thermodynamics are straw men.

Physics shows that you are wrong.

Sure, you can't make a detectable object perfectly undetectable by definition.

You can when there is a planet between you. That is why stealth works on Earth.

That is why stealth fails in space.

It's about being much harder to detect so that various militarily-useful activities can be conducted such as sneaking up on some target and shooting it.

Light travels at over a million kilometers an hour. Which means that anyone you are sneaking up on will have hours of advance warning.

There is no such thing as a perfect detector - among other things it would need infinite area both to observe perfectly and to store the infinite amount of information it received.

Who said it had to be perfect? I'm pointing out that your exhaust will be radiating heat in all directions. Over billions of kilometers. Maybe trillions of kilometers.

And that light will be travelling at a million kilometers an hour.

And I already explained how rocket exhaust can cool that fast.

No you have not. You just keep repeating that it will.

The universe has been cooling for billions and billions of years.

Why would the exhaust cool to that same temperature in a day?

The Laws of Thermodynamics say you are wrong.

It's physics.

I'd like to see some evidence that the performance gain due to more registers outweighs the performance loss due to fewer pointers per cache in the majority of cases.

In the majority of cases, the program is IO bound. In the cases where it isn't, it's likely GPU bound. If it happens to be CPU bound, it finishes too soon for it to matter. And in the tiny number of cases of a CPU-bound, long running program, why guess when you can simply compile both versions, run them and terminate the one that gets left in the dust? If that's not worth doing, the issue is not worth worrying about in the first place.

Also, it seems to me that if you're doing a lot of pointer dereferencing, you're going to get so many cache misses this issue gets lost in the noise.

We don't have to deal with constant unwanted advances - we only do the dating thing when *we* want to.

On the other hand, the "first mover" has to deal with the threat of rejection, of even ridicule, in a way that the "approachee" does not.

Being able to successfully make the first move takes courage, self-confidence, communication skills, at least a pretense of extroversion, and charisma. Yes, some of these things can be learned, but they are also partially innate. (And someone who goes looking to learn these skills is likely to find the hideous misogynist "pick up artist" community. Ugh.)

I've approached women and I've been approached by them. (And by men.) It's a hell of a lot easier on the ego to say "no thanks" than it is to be shot down by someone you're attracted to. Perhaps, if you're a charming natural extrovert, YMMV.

Note that "behaving like a jerk", which is the problem here, is orthogonal to "making the first move".

After spending more hours on everydayfeminism.com than and normal human should

So... why did you?

How about.... when a man wants to send a message to a woman for the first time, first of all they need to spend $10 to buy a "point", the content (with sender and recipient anonymized) get sent to 5 other random men for approval; they will be asked "Is the content appropriate and respectful" Yes/No ?.

Fine, just as long as the same rules apply when a woman wants to send a message to a man for the first time. Or a man to a man, or a woman to a woman, or a transgender person who does not identify as either "male" or "female" wants to contact someone.

Gender equality means gender equality.

[Person A] I have an agenda, and will try to hijack an unrelated discussion with my clumsy propaganda.

[Person B] I'm a strawman meant to paint A as a victim of persecution.

Fixed that for you.

That's actually a really good reply.

In the immortal words of Tim Minchin:

You confuse politics with culture and society. Let's ignore the 50,000 smartphone games that are so simple you would have to stretch a lot of things far beyond breaking to find any culture in them, to the point where Pong was some kind of social statement. But even with all those games ignored and restricting ourselves to PC games, yes they very often reflect parts of our culture and society. Some intentionally, some not. It's not a surprise, given that culture influences on us as members of society, and thus leaves a mark in our creative pursuits, just like greek culture influenced greek art and literature and any famous american book of your choosing would've been very different had it been written by a chinese author in China, for example.

Politics, however, is not the same as culture.

Merriam-Webster says:

Basically, politics is an activity. Writing a novel or creating a computer game is not a politicial act unless you intentionally make it so. There is no such thing as "unconscious politics".

Second:

This worrying about reflection of culture in our creations is vastly overrated. It's the same nonsense as the claim that violent games turn people into killers. I can play a game set not in todays culture, but in a culture where women have almost no rights, a medieval or fantasy setting, and I won't come out of the game wishing to take any rights away from women in the real world. On the contrary, it may make me more sensitive to gender issues.

When I look at female characters in video games, I see them as characters. I laugh about their ridiculous fantasy armor. I look at their boobs and think "yeah, suuure". Just like I look at the men and think the same.

You make too many assumptions about people you don't know. I'm not for turning all women into sex objects. I do, however, understand that sex and viewing a member of the opposite sex in a sexual way is normal human behaviour. Also, you can have your Chipendales, if you want. Why would I scream anything, let alone murder? You can look at me as a sex object, if it makes you feel good. I'm sure enough of myself to not be bothered. Heck, I've been hit on by gay men. Yes, it's a bit uncomfortable, but not a big deal. Yes, I wouldn't like having that as a constant part of my life which is why I feel for attractive women in clubs and understand why they prefer to go with a small group.

But all of these are a small selection of social imperfections, and there are thousands more of them, some related to gender and some not, some to the disadvantage of women and some to the disadvantage of men.

True to some extent. But you ignore that this "male ideal" is not better or more comfortable. Many men do not enjoy the role that society puts them in, and they don't want to be strong and powerful and in control. Worse, other than women they can't complain about it, because the role doesn't allow it. Stereotypes and forced roles affect both genders, that's my point. And just because you may think that the male role is preferable doesn't mean that all men agree with you.
Also, some of the smartest and most successful women I know are very much ladies at the same time. Because they understand how real power works and that it has nothing to do with the size of your bizeps.

In California, the law said that if you were within 3 years you had a misdemeanor, and outside that a felony, at least as pertains to statutory rape. I became sexually active at 15, so this was fairly relevant information

No problem. Even 32-bit systems will let you use 2GB per process.

According to John Dean, Nixon's former White House counsel, the purpose of the Republican "Southern strategy" was for the Republicans to replace the Democrats by appealing to racism, among other things. They seem to have succeeded. A lot of the old racist southern Democratic politicians became Republicans.

I too would like to see firearms laws based on evidence. However, the NRA killed the government funding for science-based research, and there wasn't much private research to fill in the gap. A whole generation of scientists and criminologists didn't make a career out of firearms research, because there was no funding for it. I'm not sure it makes any difference, because the decisions will probably made on the basis of politics, not science, in any case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01...
N.R.A. Stymies Firearms Research, Scientists Say
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: January 25, 2011
The dearth of money can be traced in large measure to a clash between public health scientists and the N.R.A. in the mid-1990s. At the time, Dr. Rosenberg and others at the C.D.C. were becoming increasingly assertive about the importance of studying gun-related injuries and deaths as a public health phenomenon, financing studies that found, for example, having a gun in the house, rather than conferring protection, significantly increased the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.
Alarmed, the N.R.A. and its allies on Capitol Hill fought back. The injury center was guilty of “putting out papers that were really political opinion masquerading as medical science,” said Mr. Cox, who also worked on this issue for the N.R.A. more than a decade ago.
Initially, pro-gun lawmakers sought to eliminate the injury center completely, arguing that its work was “redundant” and reflected a political agenda. When that failed, they turned to the appropriations process. In 1996, Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, succeeded in pushing through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the

Learn to read. I made it very clear that if a woman can't get birth control or jobs or voting rights or other such basic human rights, I'll be on her side, no question.

But there's a point where justified demands turn into ridiculous bullshit. In my country, feminists have successfully crippled parts of our language, because language was "male dominated". So instead of "student" and "professor", we now have to stay "StudentInnen" and "ProfessorInnen" or some such abominations (there are worse, like "Student*innen" - which is not a spelling error).

Texts written in accordance to gender study rules are utterly unreadable. I'm not joking.

Now where exactly are we with women in video games? Somewhere inbetween. We've not reached "you're a psycho" nonsense-land, but we're not in the "you can't vote and always obey your husband" territory, either. It's rare that a game doesn't offer female characters, or puts them at a disadvantage. We're fighting over visuals here. Maybe this generation has forgotten that giving women equal rights was a real fight once, and put in relation to that, being worried about sexist visuals is kind of not really that big a deal.

Am I for less sexism? Yeah.
Do I think the boob size and ridiculous fantasy armor in games is worth fighting over? Nope. There are much more important fights to pick, still.

In this particular case, I don't know all the details, so I don't pass judgement.

But in more general terms, I've seen this "women in video games" topic for some years now. Here's what is having very, very little positive effect on women in video games: Feminist activists yelling for equality. Here's what does have a visible positive effect: Men and women quietly working on changing things and people complaining about specific problems to the responsible people, with suggestions on what to change.

Politics rarely actually improve anything. We realized that when it comes to Washington D.C. politics, why don't we realize it when it comes to office politics, genderism and other relatives?

Yes, I can. But in this, they are the in-your-face aggressors. I can't remember the last time some anti-feminist pushed his agenda on me.

No, I actually listen to people I disagree with. I've listend to right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, even to christian and islamic fundamentalists (though it's really difficult to do that for more than a few minutes).

I've listened to feminists. There are moderate ones and extreme ones. The more extreme ones are quite open in what they want, and it's not equality. They cover it thinly, but basically they say women were oppressed for centuries, now it's time to turn the tables. I have citations, but they're in my native language (german). Google "Alice Schwarzer", the by far most well-known german feminist (though according to her, it should probably be feministIn).

In which games? All the games I've played in recent years make all classes available to both genders.

Because that's the fucked-up stereotypes in our society. I don't like it, either. But claiming it's only unfair to women is even more fucked-up.

If you had tried to understand what I wrote, you'd have realized I am all for equal rights. I am not, by the way, for equal treatment - gender differences are real facts of the real world and require consideration. We need slightly different clothes, for example (where would you put your dick in a woman's panty?). Sports are segregated by gender for real biology reasons. There are psychological difference where science is not sure how much is education and how much is biology. The list goes on.

Frankly speaking, I don't care because it's not my problem. I want to relax, remember?

Yes, I can understand that as a father of a daughter (which the original story on this was about) I would be upset. And yes, I think it's stupid to include only male characters unless your story calls for it (Leisure Suit Larry games, for example). But again, it's not my problem. If you want to change it, I'll not stand in your way, but I see no reason to spend my time and energy supporting a cause that's not my problem.
You fail to see the difference between normal people with normal views and political activists who have an agenda behind everything they do. No, if one of my female friends brought that up, I'd relate to her and tell her to write the company an angry letter. Why should I tell her the bullshit nonsense that you bring up? But also, why should I campaign against problems that don't affect me?

Here's what really bothers me: It's a well known psychological fact that if you have people who are mostly on your side, but just not as engaged as you are, and you bother them too much, they will more likely oppose you then join your fight. Because nobody likes to be forced, not even into something they think is a good cause.
That is my problem with aggressive feminism and why I say keep your politics out of my entertainment. I'm all for equal rights, but I would like to punch feminazis in the face, except that I was taught not to hit women. Now I'm probably a chauvinistic swine because - omg - I don't treat men (which I would hit) and women (which I won't) not equal.