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Go ahead, check out the stats. By any measure, the US is NOT number one when it comes to health care and we spend a higher percentage of our GDP than everyone else for demonstrably poorer results.

"We" already are starving and overpopulated**.

"we" are not. In fact, only a small portion of the world now faces starvation, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The evidence so far strongly suggests that we now live in a "winner-take-all" world economy, where technological advances do not filter down and only serve to deepen the inequality both within a countries population and between countries.

Again, alarmist babble with little basis in fact. The truth is that the technological revolution of the last 200+ years has extended the average lifespan worldwide from around 30 in 1800 for most people to well over 70. Even the poorest people have seen average life expectancy go from 30 to about 60.

Is everyone where they need to be? No. But let's stop with the Chicken Little imatation, shall we, so we can concentrated on the remaining problems? This scientific research/engineering project is exploring one of those ways to extend benefits to exactly the groups that need it most. Why not just evaluate the feasibility of the project, both economic and environmental, on its own merits?

Our elected representatives live in a fantasy world where their votes are now bought and paid for legally. We are no longer their concern. It's all about the money.

"First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women." -- Tony Montana

Nevertheless, you get what you pay for and most Americans get healthcare which is higher-quality than that received by Europeans

That is simply not true. Life expectancy. Infant mortality. Deaths from burns. Drownings. Deaths from falls. Deaths from poison.

Pick any metric that you like and you'll see similar results. The reality is that the U.S. paying FAR more than virtually all other countries for health care and getting demonstrably poorer results than many, including most of Europe. (We're tied with the Marshall Islands with Tuvalu and Niue close behind. Everyone else spends far less than we do.)

Worse, if you set any of the graphs in motion it becomes blatantly clear that for the past several years, we have been spending ever more on health care and seeing next to no improvment. It's most blatantly obvious in the case of infant mortality but the same trend is clear for virtually all variables. Meanwhile, country after country following more 'socialist' models are seeing far better results from the dollars that they spend.

rant.

Life expectancy vs. % of GDP spent on health care.

Life expectancy vs. Government share of total health spending.

Tell me again why government funded health care is a bad idea? We get less for our health care than every other developed nation and pay far, FAR more than anyone else does. We are clearly doing something wrong. Maybe we ought to take a look at what works for a change instead of getting our 'facts' from Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.

There are plenty of games out there that meet your criteria if you're willing to look around a bit. For example, just about Valve's entire catalog has consistently had plenty of new material included for free at later dates. Sometimes in addition to DLC that required a payment, sometimes not.

Tripwire Interactive does the same thing with the Red Orchestra series. They recently released an expansion to Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad that not only added a whole new campaign called Rising Storm based on the Pacific Theater, but also added several maps to HoS.

There are plenty of publishers out there with established track records for doing this kind of thing. Just look around a little.

It's only a whoosh when you've never had a senior help desk monkey tell you that. :-)

Speaking of Windows sounds: Ever hear a person say "h", "t", "t", "p", "colon", "slash", "slash", ... ?

FTFY ...What? Am I the only one who remembers which was designated which back when typewriters and terminals ruled the world? Just because Microsoft chose to confuse people yet again doesn't mean we should perpetuate the mistake! :-)

From Wikipedia:

According to an estimate of 2011 the population of the city was 32,036

Ummm, yeah. We're talking about an awfully small city, here. I doubt that there's much of a security threat. Kids joyriding might be the worst, and why bother with the airport when there are thousands of square miles to go off-roading just outside of town?

Personally, I think we'd be far, FAR better off if had a much more pluralistic, parliamentary structure instead of the false right-left dichomoty that has dominated American politics since the country was founded. We need flexibility in our governmental system, not some ossified, static monolith.

Fully Countering Trusting Trust Through Diverse Double-Compiling

Fully Countering Trusting Trust Through Diverse Double-Compiling

Fully Countering Trusting Trust Through Diverse Double-Compiling

I don't play FPSes on consoles so I can't speak to what makes sense for FOV there. I've never been willing to give up the fine degree of control and responsiveness that you get from the keyboard+mouse combination.

I agree with you that three monitor set ups with 120 degrees per monitor does cross the line. That's a bit much to be able to accept. :-)

Oh, I understand the issue perfectly. I've been playing FPSes for about 20 years. Yes, at times I've played on organized ladders (sometimes with a great deal of success). :-) I contend that FOV is in fact the heart of the issue for game balance/fairness or we wouldn't be having this debate.

Older games that allowed complete freedom of the definition of the FOV were generally limited in the ladder play that I participated in. However, the limits were always larger than 90 degrees.

My bone of contention isn't necessarily the imposition of a limit for such play. I just happen to think that 90 degrees is a ridiculously small, arbitrarily chosen limit designed to meet the limitations of the 4:3 ratio monitors that we used to play on.

Push it out to the 110 or 120 degrees that I referred earlier and I have less of a problem with it, especially since the newer 16:10, 16:9 and wider ratio displays can handle the view without distortion. Throw in multiple monitor set ups and I don't see why, say, 140 degrees shouldn't be doable these days.

To your point about playing with a 360 view? Have you actually tried that on any sort of large scale or architecturally busy map? It might work on a simple, cartoonish flat palette map design like TF2 where the sight lines are also typically limited to 10-20 meters. Then it might be possible to train yourself to pick out players fast enough to be able to react. I'd eat your lunch playing any game where sight lines are generally much longer and/or terrain is much more complex.

I can't imagine playing the OpFlash/ArmA series that way, for example. Forget Red Orchestra, the Battlefield series, Soldier of Fortune, Joint Ops, etc.

Call of Duty or America's Army? Maybe. The maps tend to be a bit smaller for CoD. AA's maps tend to be tight urban ones these days instead of the much larger ones from earlier in the series.