The problem with guns is what they do to people's attitudes when they're perceived of as something you should own for use on other people. If everyone agreed guns are only for hunting, for instance, they could have more guns than the US and still have few issues. (As I understand it, this is the case for some countries).

I have great news! You can test your hypothesis.

The Texas Department of Public Safety tracks stats on Texas Concealed Handgun licensees. It includes total count of licensees from 1996-2011, which you can cross-reference with the overall state population. It also includes conviction totals and rates of CHL holders vs. the rest of the state across that same time period, so you get a clear picture of what proportion CHL holders make up in crime rate relative to their population.

So I invite you to review the info, and then cross-reference the crime rate and murder rate of Texas CHL holders per 100,000 population vs. Texas as a whole, with the US and other states, and any other population you wish for that matter.

Does the data support your hypothesis? Does it contradict it?

Hi. Have you examined the Texas Department of Public Safety stats on Texas Concealed Handgun licensees? It includes total count of licensees from 1996-2011, which you can cross-reference with the overall state population. It also includes conviction totals and rates of CHL holders vs. the rest of the state across that same time period, so you get a clear picture of what proportion CHL holders make up in crime rate relative to their population.

If you haven't already examined those stats, I invite you to do so, and then cross-reference the crime rate and murder rate of Texas CHL holders per 100,000 population vs. Texas as a whole, with the US and other states, and any other population you wish for that matter. Then answer this: does the data support or contradict your assertion?

A major problem I see is that they didn't include innovations from other games that make the RTS genre more accessible.

For example, both the original Dawn of War and Supreme Commander allow you to right click a unit in a unit-producing structure to set it into an efficient but automatic build queue - it only starts building a new unit once the current one is complete.

Starcraft II doesn't have this feature, so players have to memorize the build time of every unit for their race, and remember to manually go back and rebuild units every time they're done.

Queuing up units in SC II ties up resources and causes you to fall behind an opponent who memorizes unit build timings. Failing to memorize the build timings and remember to repetitively build units during play results in a smaller army than an opponent who memorizes unit build timings.

This is overall known as "macro" in SCII. It's very important; important enough that if you just master macro, you can get into platinum or the top end of gold league.

There's no strategy involved in macro. It's just a matter of perfectly memorizing and executing very repetitive actions while under stress. I think the motivation behind this is so that players only get to really see and enjoy strategy in diamond league, since at that point everyone's macro is roughly equal enough that their micro (control of units in battle) and their overall strategy are the deciding factors in the match, not macro.

Day9, a former SC1 champion and current commentator has commented in multiple videos on the importance of macro over everything else in even high level matches, and even dedicated an entire instructional video to macro and how to "really" play SCII (using minimap only to move the main screen, etc). He's doing a major service for the SC2 community with his instructional videos. They are absolutely wonderful. But at the same time they're an unintentional indictment on the game for its unnecessary barriers to entry.

Yes. Semi spoiler, but...

If you play your cards right throughout ME2, everyone in your crew will survive. There's an achievement for just that.

If you play them very wrongly, virtually everyone will die at the end. Including you.

The game also has a classic end-game choice like Baldur's Gate, KotOR, ME1, etc, which has no impact on who lives or dies at the end.

See this. It will solve your problems. Unless you have issues with working for a company that chooses myopic-minded people with weak BS detectors to do the hiring.

In those instances where HR/management is terminally myopic, maybe it'd be best to change how you present your skills? In the case with your mom, is there a way for her to emphasize that she was teaching health-care? Any way to work that out with references from that job?

As usual, the people who think they're going to make money off the trends of the young are a day late and a dollar short. Well, at least a day late. It's become a matter of record that the people who make money off of kids' fads are the ones who hang on for dear life and jump off before the cliff. Nobody makes money consistently predicting the interests of the young. And if they try, young people will make a fool of them every single time.

You may want to check out the documentary, The Merchants of Cool.

First, would you expect all those brush makers out there to get a cut of all the artwork sold at galleries? Would the company that made the blade for the scalpel be entitled to a cut of the organ transplant operation?

Maybe if the brushes and scalpels did the work without a human hand to wield them. HFT is completely automated. The analogy you present fits more with asking if the manufacturer of the computer the programmer used to write the HFT program should get a cut of the profits.

If anything you should compare a master artist wielding the brush, or a master surgeon wielding the scalpel with a programmer who writes a HFT program that generates consistent returns.

How many construction workers does it take to build a building? There are over 20 specializations that go towards building anything to meet regulations.

How many programmers to create HFT programs?

The fact that very few programmers are in the position of developing the trading systems for firms -- at least the algorithmic logic part of it -- means a lot more than if they were part of a team. Usually it's a team of one, or two at most.

Oh.

because guns are tools for professionals.

Save that BS for your next NRA meeting.

Okay...

[ This blog post was written by Pascal Eggert. Pascal is an incredibly talented graphics designer, firearm enthusiast and reader of The Firearm Blog. He works for Crytek, a major German game studio...

Didn't know the NRA spread to Germany. Thanks bro.

...or maybe it doesn't actually work the way you say, because the corollary to your claim is that release will happen soonest if no one is ever added to the project (one member is requisite for the project to exist at all).

...or maybe you should have read the link he included at the end for more details instead of making a ridiculous straw man.

Admittedly, the parent misquoted. He should have said, "You cannot add developers to a late project and make it release sooner". But if you had taken the time and effort to check out that wiki article instead of knee jerking you would've seen the correct quote in the first sentence.

This might also be good for laparoscopic surgeons, who last I knew use a gamepad for crusing around in people's intestines.