If you want to earn 1/3 as much as an engineer, and barely enough to survive in NYC, then don't get a degree. Otherwise, go and fucking learn something.

Yes... That's the entire point of a CA, to certify that a person really is that person. If the certificate is bad, they can no longer make that certification, so it really really really is their job to do that. It is in fact their only job.

Honestly, I like the fact that they put a penalty on expanding too much too quickly. Early Civs had the issue that the roll your war machine over everyone approach by far dominated other paths to victory. Civ V balanced that out nicely.

You're right though, the way that culture worked (as opposed to just happiness) was completely broken, and completely impossible to win in a multiplayer match, and yes, the expansions sorted that out.

The city state mechanic I felt worked well though –it stopped the AI playing by elimination of dominated strategies, and just always voting for itself, making diplomatic victory impossible.

Honestly, I have no idea how you can not enjoy Civ V. I've owned all the Civ games except for II. Enjoyed all of them, but V is by far the most tactical, and interesting to play. The hex based system, and the fact that you can only have one unit per tile makes attacking cities much much much trickier than it ever used to be.

Actually, in the UK, it really does work like that. Even if you're only visiting the UK for a 2 hour period, and manage to become seriously ill in that time, you'll get free treatment there.

Yes, it is. In much the same way as we had to have a culture war to prove that women were not second class citizens, and a culture war to prove that blacks were not second class citizens. Unfortunately, these wars (including the one proving that gays are not second class citizens) are on going.

Because lots of people who are not religious (or of other religions) feel that "marriage" is an important thing in their life, and "civil union" is not. The bottom line is that the church can not, and does not have a monopoly on the word. The government shouldn't give to them.

No one is stopping him saying anything. They're simply saying they don't like what he's saying, and what he's doing. They're saying (freely too), that they disagree so strongly that they feel that they don't want to interact with him. That's their right too.

Actually, the smarter receivers do still work with bounced signals involved.

Unlikely... More likely it's them checking their (not announced) scrambling works, ready for an invasion.

This doesn't need any redefinition. The marriage system is already part of law, and because of separation of church and state, that means not part of religion. Marriage is a purely legal thing.

That's the key though – taxi services are required to be licensed (and with good reason), so these are not operating under the same constraints.

Yes. One of the best ways to avoid wearing cells is to cache writes aggressively, in the hope that either 1) another write will simply write over the top of that one, or 2) another write will fill in the rest of the cell, so that you don't have to erase a cell for a partial write.

While you're right, there are significant costs over and above the ones you're considering. For example, the cost of producing cards for all card holders, and producing terminals for all stores.

The point is that "punishment" should not in itself be a goal at all. Rehabilitation and protection of members of society should be the only two goals.