Well, I use my CPU to transcode media files, so I might get one. But for gaming? When will CPU ever matter for gaming, unless your running some terribly-written Java game?

Of course you have to be online the first time you launch it, just like you have to be online to download the game. That's not actually a burden.

Steam offline mode has had issues over the years, and I still don't trust it, but having to be online the first time you ever launch a game is the least annoying copy protection possible. There's a freaking checkbox in Steam to launch a game as soon as the download is complete, for goodness sake, so you don't even need to babysit it to do that first launch.

He was laid off with all the QA guys. He got a nice severance package though.

Yes, in that case they'll probably be at-fault, which really isn't much consolation when you have to stop everything you were planning on doing to deal with your damaged-ass car. And if you're seriously injured or killed in the accident, that will further ruin your day. And if you're really unlucky, the other driver will not be carrying insurance. The only time I've ever been in an accident that involved another driver, the other driver wasn't. And yes, it was required by law in that state. And yes, my insurance was pretty good about paying for my damages while they were suing the bejesus out of them. Took a month to put my car back together, and the body shop really didn't do a very good job of it. So in general if you can avoid an accident, it's really better to do so, no matter whose fault it's going to turn out to be.

It sounds like you've memorized your multiplication tables, but are ardently proclaiming that you didn't. There are many different ways to commit something to memory, but one way or another you need to know what the product of any two 1-digit numbers is without reaching for a calculator, or spending any time thinking about it.

The government airbag mandate injured many and killed a few children and elderly. That's not at all unclear. Airbags became safe about the same time the car companies were originally intending to bring them to production. The government did only harm.

But I'm guessing that for you, safety is a smokescreen, that your actual agenda is "more government control is always good", and so my argument that "but it kills children" is irrelevant. It did in fact increase government control, so to you nothing else matters in counting it a victory, yes?

Cards against humanity if you're having friends over. Unless they're Mormons. Then, cards against humanity with all the expansion packs.

I've probably put 80+ hours into dwarf fortress. And I haven't even started doing megaprojects yet. I did have a king set up residence once, before everyone died.

Not after I throw the bits of statue into the sea, then just to be safe throw the planet into the Sun, and then throw the Sun into a black hole. It's like you've never played D&D, or something..

If you go out without an umbrella, it serves little purpose to yell at the sky when you get wet. We live in an imperfect world. A rational person takes reasonable precautions against known and likely dangers. An irrational person makes excuses not make the effort.

Blame and responsibility are orthogonal concepts. You can be completely free of moral culpability, yet still be irresponsible. And responsibility distinguishes an adult from a child (and that message is one more men need to hear - for this problem and many, many others).

No, today we have ball-point pens - get back to your side of the pond, and take your Maths with you! :p

And of course computation isn't that relevant to professional mathematics, but it is a useful life skill to be able to do simple calculation in one's head (18% interest? 18% isn't a lot, right?). Totally agree with you about orders of magnitude - I believe one reason our national debt is so high is that people can't tell a million from a trillion (let alone the brits ruining the words billion and trillion in the first place). Plus, I think doing simple math in your head is key to understanding how much a hundred is.

That's an interesting assertion, but there's no evidence for it. Other scientists were publishing without being executed, and we have records some of Bruno's other writings, which included personal attacks on other mathematicians, and pseudo-religious/philisohophical/mystical mumbo-jumbo of exactly the sort that would get you attention in secular circles, but the wrong kind of attention from the inquisition. (And even so, had he not foolishly gone back to Italy, he probably would have been OK.)

Not quite the same time period, but there were letters from people pretty high up in the Catholic Hierarchy to Copernicus saying stuff like "I think your ideas are great, and I urge you to publish them formally." The evidence from that time is pretty clear.

With time urban legends become simply legends, but you shouldn't believe "history" simply because it makes a good story (e.g., the "Children's Crusade" that never happened)when even Wikipedia has enough to make things more clear.

But the only reason the Sun's core is that hot is that it's a nearly perfect insulator. Give a small heater enough time in a perfectly insulated room and it will eventually get quite hot. Matter gets quite odd when light pressure is the dominant force.

Another surprising fact about fusion in the Sun is that the fusion power generated is about 1.5 watts per ton of core. Even in conditions in the core of the sun, fusion is hard, and the particular reaction process just confirmed was at the end of a long chain of reasoning explaining what we do see. So I think this actually give evidence that a bunch of stuff in Wikipedia about processes in the Sun is also true. (If a different fusion process was found, then we'd likely be wrong about how much power is generated, and thus about the rate and manner that that power eventually makes it to the surface and gets radiated).

That still gets you rear-ended, which is still a huge pain in the ass.

Airbags, when first mandated by government ahead of when manufacturers were prepared for roll-out, were in fact quite dangerous. Does your car have an airbag off switch for the front passenger seat, so a child can sit there? It took a while for people to catch on and socially impose a "no kids in the front seat" rule, after many unfortunate incidents involving children. It was an total fuck-up, a perfect example of government do-gooding directly injuring people - children and the elderly in this case. And it was years before the problem was properly addressed with weight-sensors in the seats.

There's a strong market for safety features in cars today. You really don't need ham-handed government applying force for adoption.