Re: Starting Engineer's Salaries
I played Evony for a while, until other powers decided to farm the crap out of my cities, and my alliance disintegrated while I watched. That pretty much killed any enjoyment I had from the game... On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 9:23 PM, Rceeberger rceeber...@comcast.net wrote: On 10/22/2010 8:13:45 AM, Charlie Bell (char...@culturelist.org) wrote: On 22/10/2010, at 1:41 PM, Rceeberger wrote: One at a time please. Xponent Insert GOATSE Here Maru Rob LOL!!! Rob, I've missed you. I've been here...I read the conversations and more or less keep up. I just havent had much worth adding recently. Mostly I spend my online time playing Evony, where I am the host of Bavaria, a top 10 alliance on SS51. We use Skype in Bavaria so I can be found there pretty much every night under Xponent. Drop by and chat sometime if any of you get a spare few. Xponent Addictive Gaming Maru rob ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Starting Engineer's Salaries
On 10/23/2010 9:41:08 AM, Damon Agretto (damon.agre...@gmail.com) wrote: I played Evony for a while, until other powers decided to farm the crap out of my cities, and my alliance disintegrated while I watched. That pretty much killed any enjoyment I had from the game... The thing about Evony that is maddening, you have to play every day and playing as many hours as you can provides many bonuses. As it stands...I'm about to break 5 mil prestige and am prepared to dump nearly 3 mil honor on an enemy who deserves it. Evony has been merging servers together for the last year, and the maps are larger than they used to be. Which server did you play on? I was on S72 when an alliance named ELITE was doing pretty much what you describe to us and anyone who stood up to them. We managed to fight back with some success which was surprising since ELITE was rife with botters and we were more or less outclassed. Since then, we have learned a few tricks of our own. How to feed troops for free. How to move any troop at scout speed. How players can trade heroes. Learning how to exploit some of Evony's many bugs has helped a lot. Flash is kinda crappy, but their implimentation is especially bad. xponent THE Host Maru rob ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Look Who's Back / Mike's crazy list of physics hypotheses that he wishes he had time to look into but doesn't have the time.
I'm back again. I don't really know that I am doing any better than I was when I left, but I will see. I wanted to discuss some concepts with intelligent people (some of whom may already know about some of this stuff). I will preface these that my knowledge of Quantum theory is small, and if anyone can recommend a good (emphasis on good, not overly simplified or popularized like Hawking's Books which read more like quantum physics for dummies I want nitty-gritty details) book on quantum theory, I would appreciate it. Mike's Crazy Hypothesis 1: I have heard hypothesized that neutrons are simply protons upon-which an electron has collapsed. First, does this make sense by our current understanding of quantum theory? If the hypothesis does make sense, what if the hypothesis is backwards? What if Neutrons are the natural state of matter and protons are neutrons that had part of them stripped away (likely during the big-bang)? This could explain why electrons are near mass-less and the incredibly strong force of attraction between protons and electrons. Mike's Crazy Hypothesis 2: I am half-way through reading Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion. In it he says that proponents of a creator argue that the fundamental force constants in the universe are so finely tuned so as to allow the conditions that make life (as we know it) possible. and that if even one of these, like the strong force, was slightly different, that life would not be possible because if the strong force were higher, all hydrogen in the universe would have fused into heavier stuff, and if it were weaker, no heavier atoms essential to the formation of our planet and the life on it could be created in the cores of massive stars. He explains Multi-dimensional theory and it as a possible explanation that would explain why a universe that has the right constants can exist without a creator. Multi-dim theory aside, a thought occurred to me: If the constants of our universe need to be at a specific range for matter to exist in the forms that promote life, what if the constants like the strong force are not constants? What if, over billions of years (or even longer), the strong force slowly got weaker. Indeed, a higher strong force would go a long way to explain the singularity that resulted in the big bang, and the weakening of the strong force would go a long way to explaining why the big bang occurred in the first place. It might also go a long way to explain why Galaxies and solar-systems don't seem to follow the same model of gravity. If the fundamental constants of the universe are changing ever-so-slowly, Objects at a great distance would appear to be affected differently than objects closer together simply because of the time it took for the bodies to form with relation to each other and the changing of the fundamental forces. This may also explain the recent data suggesting that the universe appears to be expanding at an ever increasing rate rather than slowing down as one would expect. I have more crazy hypotheses, but I am getting tired, so I think that I will stop there for now. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Look Who's Back / Mike's crazy list of physics hypotheses that he wishes he had time to look into but doesn't have the time.
On 10/22/2010 10:35 PM, Michael Harney wrote: I'm back again. I don't really know that I am doing any better than I was when I left, but I will see. I wanted to discuss some concepts with intelligent people (some of whom may already know about some of this stuff). I will preface these that my knowledge of Quantum theory is small, and if anyone can recommend a good (emphasis on good, not overly simplified or popularized like Hawking's Books which read more like quantum physics for dummies I want nitty-gritty details) book on quantum theory, I would appreciate it. Have you tried Michio Kaku's or Brian Greene's books? In my experience they are both wonderfully accessible writers with very firm grasps in the details of quantum and string/M theories. I've certainly enjoyed what I've read from both writers. (They are also both humble, working theoreticians.) -- --Max Battcher-- http://worldmaker.net ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Can Honerable People Have Mortgages?
Just a second: huge numbers of replies to this message, and so far all I have seen missed your error. 'Responsible for repaying' does not mean 'there is no situation imaginable where you will not complete your obligation.' Being responsible and honorable means only that you will do so until the debt is repaid. If you die or are otherwise unable to pay, that is a separate consequence, and is no part of your attitude toward paying. Or, look at it this way: you are being honorable if you pay all the debt, as long as you can do so physically (not financially, which is all the law seems to require). That means you have not treated the debt as someone else's problem, or unrealistic, or some failure of the creditor's. If you cannot afford a house, but you agree to a mortgage for one that you know you cannot actually pay off, then you have been dishonorable. (Yes, that means a lot of buyers were dishonorable in the last couple decades. Is there any other way to see it? Owning your own house is neither necessary nor obligatory, but I have only heard people excuse the problem as though society and the banking industry all agreed everyone has to own their own home.) Mitch [from mePad] On Oct 21, 2010, at 6:05 AM, Dan Minette danmine...@att.net wrote: . But, there was always a possibility that I'd be hit by a devastating illness after the mortgage went under water, so that it would be impossible to sell the house for enough to pay the mortgage and it would be impossible to keep up payments. . I figured the interest rate I was charged was figured to include covering people in that situation. Given that, do you consider it dishonorable for me to have taken out a mortgage? If so, then what fraction of loans are ethical? It seems to me that it is nearly impossible, even if you had the money in the bank to cover the loan if, to take out a loan where there wasn't an improbable set of circumstances that would cause you to default on the loan. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Can Honerable People Have Mortgages?
Wait just here: you have created a problem in perspective. Yes, from the bank's point of view their rate includes a way to cover their losses in general for the number of loans that they cannot recover. But that is nothing like insurance: insurance assumes some outside agency will pay them off for each loan that is incomplete. From the borrower's perpective, the difference is unimportant: it cannot matter to the borrower how the money is being used as it is paid back. It is none of his business what his specific dollars are paying for: he has no more say in that. His attitude begins and ends with the loan agreement. You can't look at it from both perspectives and decide that the agreement is moot because a term used from one side creates less obligation when you look at it from the other end. Here's what it seems you are writing: Cars are made to withstand impacts. Car insurance covers the cost of repairing collisions. Not every driver will drive without a collision. Therefore, insured drivers individually do not have any obligation to avoid collisions. Do you see that even though the insurance industry is there to pay for collisions, wanton abuse is not what it is calculating for? That is why the mortgage industry could not cover the inflated pricing of the housing market; they weren't prepared for a change in attitude of the borrower or creditors, and they tried to hide their failure by being childishly clever in 'selling debt.' I still wonder why anyone in the industry actually supported those awful, childish liars. Mitch [from mePad] On Oct 21, 2010, at 8:56 AM, Dan Minette danmine...@att.net wrote: Given the fact that a portion of the interest I paid the bank was a premium to cover the banks loss in case of such a default; why is it dishonorable to consider that an insurance payment? As Brad pointed out, mortgages interest rates are calculated to include the probability of default. I see your idealism, but that's not how the market works. Defaulting on a loan has a penalty associated with it; it will be hard to get another loan in the future, and if one does, it will be at a higher rate ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Loan modifications (was Re: Starting Engineer's Salaries)
Again, the problem of perspective: That the bank factors in a rate that amounts to insurance (for the bank) is not the same thing as the borrower's loan being insured. It is calculated based on what might never be recovered from loans. The borrower can consider his payments insured if he, separately, buys insurance to make sure it is paid. Then he can take the attitude that his debt is covered. Insurance is one-sided; it isn't about covering both sides of an agreement. The bank's insurance against default does not benefit the borrower. Mitch [from mePad] On Oct 21, 2010, at 4:32 PM, John Williams jwilliams4...@gmail.com wrote: If I am paying for insurance for the lender in case I don't pay it back, why is it immoral to accept the penalty for not paying it back, knowing that I prepaid insurance for the lender. I answered this in another post, but I'll explain a little bit differently here. I see the mortgage insurance as insurance against the borrower being UNABLE to pay back the money, not just choosing to default. If your insurance agreement makes it clear that it is factoring in the chance that you choose to default ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
