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At 1/16/11 12:42 PM, explodingbunnies wrote: Barbed wire the outside of my house. Electric fence too. Fortify the walls, get metal barricading for the windows, and get that steel door from my attic and put it over the front door, completely block off back door, turn attic into greenhouse for plants. I win.

So, you've bought this stuff already?

If no, you've lost already.

At 1/16/11 12:16 PM, CalvinGodly wrote: This will never happen, it was scientifically proven.

Rabbies makes people go a little crazy, you'd just need a more infectious version that's more potent and makes people not like themselves. They don't need to be "un-dead"

(not a video game topic)

I just got my first 360 (yeah behind the times, i had a wii), and we picked up left 4 dead which I'd played before. My girlfriend really isn't a gamer, but I figured we could go through No Mercy on easy. For those of you who haven't played it, its about getting through Pittsburgh (where we happen to live) to Mercy Hospital and escaping on a chopper.

So, here's the funny part, and I guess I've experienced it too. She's looking around for Zombies before she enters rooms/opens doors. When I've played this game in the past I used to walk home at night through a pretty dead campus that had rolling fog often, and sure I got a little paranoid until I was in my room.

Just wondering if you ever find yourself checking behind your back for the undead; or, if when you enter a room you size it up for the places you'd need to defend with a shotgun or you could get out of dodge if necessary.

The room I'm in right now would need for people to defend it, and it'd be a last stand scenario unless we could clear the one entrance or wanted to chance jumping out the back window and running off into the woods.

So, what are you going to do if Z-day comes? And do you eve rfind yourself looking around.

At 1/15/11 03:30 AM, KemCab wrote: I assume you are asking if there is anything whose existence you can know with absolute certainty, and the answer to that is no. (Case in point: how do you know you're not just an elaborate machine?)

I think that its safe to assume that there must be a "machine" (as in a state-machine) somewhere, and that that machine exists. And that therefor the answer is yes. There must be something that necessarily exists.

At 1/11/11 02:33 PM, Memorize wrote: Graph

In regards to your graph. Over 50% of that is private money. Medicaid generally refers to people who can't afford to be on their own: the elderly; chip is for kids who couldn't possibly live in a world without a little bit of socialism as they rely on others until they are of age; and your remaining 13% is unexplained as "other"

The graph just demonstrates that right now we've put the most needy all in one place because they can't be taken care of by a private system.

At 1/12/11 05:20 PM, Earfetish wrote: Also does anyone really care that Palin (who we over here appear to view basically as a stupd white-trash ultra-Christian Satan) used the phrase 'blood libel' to describe accusations that she was responsible? Because I think it's a nice turn of phrase, tbh, but I suppose it has an anti-semetic history. But it's not like she was saying anything directly negative about the Jews, she was just saying that she was being called responsible for blood, which is libellous.

She certainly wasn't accused of the actual murder or of grinding children into her Matzah (which is what the blood libel typically refers to), so it isn't 100% appropriate, but I see where you're all coming from if you're saying its kind of close. Because it is kind of close; but it isn't the same at all either.

No intelligent person said she caused this, but some nuts did say her rhetoric contributed to an atmosphere that made it possible, and that's something entirely different from accusing a person of actual murder, which was always connected with the phrase blood libel.

That said, less than 50% of self described republicans take this woman seriously. The only reason she keeps coming up is because she's an easy news story and a lightning rod for controversy. Somehow she managed to actually be a nexus point for political commentary. You either hate her or love her, and that makes her a great trick for our sensationalist news society.

The way I look at Palin is the way I look at Final Fantasy VII and video game nerds. Its roughly the same reaction.

Somewhat serious political bloggers have taken up the mantra "everytime a reporter writes a story about Palin, God kills another kitten." But the page views!

I revived an older story of mine, shortened it up a bit so it hits its key points and gets where it needs to go without all the fluff.

Plus, its very newgroundsish. Should be interesting.

At 1/13/11 06:03 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: kid....

Fixed an error; meant to say hinges:

I rev the engine again. I'm burning rubber, the garage door is flying off its hinges and children are souring out into the night air. I hit Beedling Dr. at 40 mph, with a kid stuck to my windshield. A sharp turn sends him flying and I'm racing off into the night, towards the highway and freedom.

Kidocalypse

Tiny hands beat against my sliding glass door like a drum and my son Jake lies dead at my feat, a knife in his tiny little hand, a dent in his skull. It is night, Jake is supposed to be tucked in bed; well so much for that.

"Goodnight forever."

Jake had been more difficult than Sarah, who I had caught dropping a radio into my wife's bath, back before Cleveland fell to the small fists and crazed minds. Jake, my son, had been like a little me.

I would reminisce, but it is not safe here. The drumming has become louder as sticks and shovels and rakes begin to bang on the windows. I don't have much time.

I grab the food Sarah and I had packed for two; not three, not four, two.

Now one.

The batteries and flashlights aren't far off. I shove a box of matches into the toaster, put the newspaper on top of it and push the button. Its time to go. My suitcase is already in the minivan.

I'm already in the minivan, in the garage. I rev the engine. There's a spare gas tank, a chainsaw, hedge clippers and the longest kitchen knife I could find. My tank is full: good. I plan to head for the mountains.

I rev the engine again. I'm burning rubber, the garage door is flying off its engines and children are flying off into the night air. I hit beedling at 40 mph, with a kid stuck to my windshield. A sharp turn sends him flying and I'm racing off into the night, towards the highway and freedom.

At 1/10/11 06:14 PM, MoralLibertarian wrote: I'm still biased against the left: I have been conditioned to look at the nuts on the left's reaction first. I see conservatives preemptively protecting themselves by instinct, because this happens every time someone is shot. I really haven't seen right wingers rejoicing, or even sighing in relief, that she was shot by a "dope-smoking liberal."

Just don't confuse "left wing nuts" with liberals. And we won't consider "right wing nuts" as examples of conservatism. K?

At 1/10/11 03:28 PM, GameBlade wrote: I think you mean a form of communication

No, I do not. I mean language. IE that there is a "substance" that is capable of state change and that upon that substance is a set of rules that makes a language and defines all things that are possible with the use of that substance; but to go further since the substance cannot exist without a language which tells it it can exist, at some level the two cannot be divorced. So when I say that language is necessary, I mean that the substance is also necessary, and when I say the substance is necessary I also mean the language is.

Like aristotle's cave, we can only know what we have the capability to perceive. In the absence of omniscience, the only thing we can say beyond that is that there must be rules and objects to which those rules apply.

Science's attempt to understand those rules via hypothesis, trial, and error is how we can get closest to the truth of what that universal language is.

Computer science and the idea of computing is the proof of concept.

At 1/10/11 03:11 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: Language is the only thing that MUST exist.

I'd also add as an addendum that some structure or essence for storage must also exist.

Everything else could be or is a simulation.

Language is the only thing that MUST exist.

The most fallible aspect of humanity is our inability to accurately depict the future.

I didn't know this guy, but I did know another guy who everyone thought was off, who had an obsession with violence, a hatred of those around him, and just gave off a general vibe that people would often comment "If anyone, then he'd be the guy, and I wouldn't be surprised." That was in high school. When I went off to college I heard later he'd been arrested for having plans, ammunition stockpiled etc.

It shouldn't be about curbing free speech. Because ultimately, speech is the only way you can find out. And, there have been other people who have been suspected of being crazy who simply aren't, at least, that crazy.

There is no perfect solution to prevent these sorts of things, but a certain amount of vigilance and a bit of empathetic awareness might allow us to head off a percentage of them through some sort of intervention.

It is encouraging to here that people were starting to step forward, but as usual, the organization most connected to him was pushing him off and ignoring the problem rather than attempting to address it. I mean that, he was kicked out of class, but there appears to be no attempt to counsel him or make others aware.

This is unfortunately a side effect of life. We shouldn't have to adjust the way we live to deal with it. And that sort reaction to anything is an overreaction, be it 9/11 or whatever else.

At 1/9/11 03:05 PM, Jon-86 wrote:

At 1/9/11 11:16 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 1/2/11 07:26 AM, TropicalPenquin wrote: Do dreams your host allow connections on ports that are not http/mail/ftp etc.

I can imagine most hosts will block all connections on ports that don't provide one of these functions for security reasons.

How do I check this?

Write a simple port scanner. Get it to incrementally connect to each port then log what happens. If its blocked the connection is typically refused but if their is some kind of service you will get a deamon message or some kind of welcom message telling you what service is running or at the very least an SYN ACK

Well, I finally did something reasonable. My server is a homebrew, which means there's probably something wrong with it. I went and downloaded Java's example knock knock client & server. I put one up on my webpage and kept the client on my pc. I can telnet to the knockKnockServer. I can hit it with the knockKnockClient. So it is now down to something with the way I wrote my server.

I'll have to find out what they did with one that I did not do with the other.

At 1/2/11 07:26 AM, TropicalPenquin wrote: Do dreams your host allow connections on ports that are not http/mail/ftp etc.

I can imagine most hosts will block all connections on ports that don't provide one of these functions for security reasons.

How do I check this?

I tried setting up a proxy server and I can get the server to fail (register a connection, but process it incorrectly) if I directly load the webpage tied to the server, but I can't telnet from my home pc.

If anyone has experience setting up servers to work with an actionscript client, please contact me.

I've got an actionscript + java client/server system that works locally, but I'm having trouble getting it to work on the web.

This is going to involve sandboxes, opening ports and all sorts of fun stuff I know I need to do, but I don't 100% understand.

If you think you have the experience or patience please contact me directly via pm or using the aim address on my userpage.

At 1/8/11 12:02 AM, WadeFulp wrote:

At 1/7/11 07:14 PM, Chronamut wrote: The room is probably the second oldest newgrounds official affiliated irc room kicking around for about.. 6 years.

Since when was it officially affiliated with Newgrounds?

Since Chronomut said so. Who do you think you are? Tom's brother?

Chronomut is T.H.E. .... he's just the.... guy who said so?

At 1/7/11 08:18 AM, deckheadtottie wrote:

At 1/7/11 08:10 AM, Brian wrote: . And yeah, you having a list...

Considering that list I compiled never left the mod-lounge, I am intrigued as to how you would know that.

1, I used to be a mod. Go observe my alts userpage.

But two AND more importantly, this thread becomes a list of new users.

I just happened to be logged into Brian when I got the pm, I didn't bother to log out before making the thread.

At 1/7/11 08:08 AM, Sheizenhammer wrote: The stupid cunt actually forgot to put a link to the toolbar he's spamming about in the PM.

Both pms I've gotten had links in them. Clearly some of the users involved are shooting blanks; others not so much.

Why you hatin on the Jelly?

o_O

Lol, I know you said no suggestions, but I'm still rooting for some sort of svn like gui versioning system.

At 1/2/11 07:26 AM, TropicalPenquin wrote: Do dreams your host allow connections on ports that are not http/mail/ftp etc.

I can imagine most hosts will block all connections on ports that don't provide one of these functions for security reasons.

Supposedly. After talking to support it should be possible, but they wouldn't help me actually do it. I can find examples of people asking how to do it and doing it a few years ago, but nothing recent. So I'm wondering if it is security they've added since.

Anyway, I just found a hidden switch in their gui panel that allowed me to finally give myself root access. So I should be able to use one of the many commands I was unable to use before.

Suggestions on which ones I should try first would be great. I think I have to open the port myself, and it should be allowed. I'm taking a long flight today, so I'll read what's posted either tonight or tomorrow night depending on available time.

So, I've been testing locally for a while, but I'm to the point that I want to take my Java Socket Server and actually put it up on my domain.

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience. I picked a random port and it seems that the port probably isn't open? The socket binds to the port fine, but I can't connect from another location.

All I know is that its a virtual linux box, whatever DreamHost uses by default.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Eh, I dragged more than carried the NG anthology. Hopefully its been passed on to a capable duo and we'll see more from it.

My resolution as far as flash it to make it a viable multiplayer platform. When google wave failed I was stuck with server code that I was using for testing. That code has evolved into a capable server that replaces what Google Wave was.

If all goes according to plan I'll have my first multiplayer game out sometime in January/February. And after that I'd like to look into opening it up. But, memory (RAM) isn't cheap on the hosting end. If anyone likes the idea of turned based flash games being opened up to a brand new multiplayer community and you are interested in making it a success. Feel free to contact me after the first proof of concept either works or tanks.

Also, now that I've done some more custom GUI work I should be able to update the music player one last time. Probably after the multi player game is released.

If I had one wish for what this community could accomplish, it would be that some of the people who have adopted AS3 would be willing to make components and share them. Simple things like scrollbars, listings, and things like that are lacking. And almost every game needs one. The resources available scattered over the net aren't very compatible.

At 12/27/10 12:11 PM, KemCab wrote: So essentially you'd be punished for not buying insurance? Does that make it better?

Since the other alternative is that no one gets fined and the government picks up the tab with no tax assistance, its better than nothing. However, I'm not very much in favor of the current plan. So better is not a word I care about. I believe it is legal.

Why not just raise taxes directly instead of dancing around the point? Or simply just nationalize health care?

In response to the first; because, then, why have health insurance (raising taxes without creating a better option sounds bad to me)?

In response to the second: Indeed.

At 12/27/10 05:25 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Well firstly, banning murder doesn't increase people's desire to murder people.

How do you know?

Anyway, you compalin about tax evasion, and your solution? Giving people more of an incentive...to evade tax.

I'm not complaining about tax evasion. And it isn't about incentive. Even if the rich complied completely with the law right now, it wouldn't be good enough. You are putting words in my mouth.

You can't say they didn't hurt though.

And you can't say they did. All we know is that the American economy was working spectacularly well, even with taxes being very high. We can there for conclude that having high taxes doesn't necessarily hurt the economy.

Economics is not a natural science. Without having a time machine and hence being able to control variables, for all you know having lower taxes might have made things even better.

And having high taxes right now might make the economy better. You can't say otherwise because you can't test it. That's your argument? It goes both ways.

And economics could be a natural science. We could test things. We should.

But it is still less than it was before Reagan.

How can tax revenue increase..and there be less? In the years after his tax polices, revenue increased on previous years.

The tax rate is less than it was before Reagan. As revenue has gone up it has gone up because of things like population, GDP & inflation; but, it has not kept up with the demand of government services and so the debt has been growing. Had taxes remained at the rates they were at previous to Reagan we would have been in much better shape.

Then why do we need higher taxes? If lower taxes enable revenue to grow and what you apparently think is a rate consistent with population growth, then why not just have lower taxes?

Lower taxes do not necessarily allow revenue to grow. And if they do, it depends very much on whose taxes are lowered. Almost all economists believe that lowering taxes on the rich does less to "stimulate" an economy than lowering them on the middle class or poor.

We need higher taxes if we want to address the deficit. Otherwise we can continue to borrow until other countries think we can't pay it back and we are at risk of default. The interest rates on our new loans will rise and we will quickly be unable to pay our bills and be in a situation where we either declare war, choose not to acknowledge the debts, or suffer a severe economic downturn due to inflation or austerity.

You make it sound like "The bigger society gets the more government needs to do

Yes to the above, no to the insinuations from your own twisted brain:

and the more they need to control people's lives", then in reality, they just need to spend more on what they already are spending.

I don't believe necessarily that the government *needs* to control more things, but over time there are more technological advances, more property, more crime. In general there is more the the government to do as the population increases and there are clashes between individuals or groups over rights. It is not a matter of invading privacy or taking property away.

Wtf? Ignoring inflation (caused by your wonder fed reserve), you said YOURSELF that tax increases as population grows EVEN IF YOU HAVE LOW TAXES, and so more taxpayers = more revenue, WITHOUT raising taxes.

Even still those tax rates were for a much smaller set of government operations. It was a smaller country. It had to do less in terms of repeating singular activities and the number of activities that existed.

I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

Under reagan, tax revenue increased. In these times, as you said, the economy was in worse shape than in high tax times. There is a correlation between tax revenue and bad economic conditions, and following your correlation/causation approach to economic, the more money government has, the worse we are.

Again, you're talking nonsense.

The deficit exploded under Reagan (who had to raise taxes in the end, probably accounting for your rise in revenue), and in terms of taxes as a percentage of GDP, it went down. Nothing Reagan did was good for the Government balance sheet. And nothing he did raised real revenue for the government.

That's why our debt went up so much the last couple years. The government wasn't pulling in nearly as much through taxes and had to borrow more of it.

or maybe, I don't know, it was SPENDING too much?

Spending didn't change, neglecting the stimulus (without which or economy would have collapsed). Even the new health care law was designed to reduce the deficit.

The only thing that has significantly increased our debt in the past 15 years has been cutting taxes without a clear plan to cut spending. It is therefor, the cuts that have lead to an increased deficit. Otherwise all of the programs on the books would have been paid for.

All of that is neglecting:

On that lovely war that your precious democrats voted in favour of?

Democrats are often times emotional idiots. The republicans supported the war far longer. Libertarians & movement liberals (not to be confused with progressives) opposed the war from the outset.

Obviously the war added debt. Starting yet another war added to the debt further. This is a clear situation when we could have taken another path. But the wars were kept off the books during Bush's years, and we still had an increasing deficit.

At 12/26/10 09:58 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

So taxing people is a good way from preventing this...but NOT giving wallstreet trillions of dollars of the middle class's tax dollars isn't?

That would be another good way to do it. But we can't outlaw a "class" of people from participating in a market. Do you have a way to suggest doing this without insulating the upper class further?

At 12/26/10 05:32 AM, TheMason wrote: Um...did you happen to read the post where Gum was talking about taking away the incentive to be rich? Can you stay with me here, buddy?

* Taking away the ability to be ultra rich. The equation would adjust with inflation and with wage imbalances. Essentially, it would be to keep the richest 1% from owning 90% of the wealth of the nation as they do now.

At 12/24/10 11:58 AM, TheMason wrote: Gum...this has been tried over and over again. Greece, Rome, Spain, etc have all played the "obscene rich" class war card well before Karl Marx first sucked his thumb.

It does not work.

Really were you there? I seem to remember Rome being around for thousands of years. What are your specific examples and how do they refute a progressive tax system?

See your theory is self-defeating. By taking away the "incentive to be rich"...you take away the incentive to invest and this leads to tax evasion and the hoarding that Keynesians and progressives are so afraid of.

No one is taking away the incentive to be rich. We're just making it harder to be rich and stay rich. You can still amass a lot of money. You just won't be able to hold on and wield that position of power with out continuing to generate a lot of money every year. See the difference?

I'd also support a tax on assets as mentioned above.

The point is not to remove the incentive. People will always want to be rich. It would be impossible to remove that incentive. Besides, as money becomes more and more electronic, it will become easier and easier to prevent evasions.

What you want is every incentive to be rich b/c the way you get rich is through investing not saving money in accounts that barely keep up with inflation.

No, you don't want to add incentives to people going after riches, because that ultimately means not distributing wealth in an "equal" way.

Companies and businesses can amass enough wealth through products that their owners do not need to be able to invest further out of their own pocket change for your arguments to make any sense.

Again...twisted logic. You need to encourage savings...to lessen the need for a public safety net. Instead we have a system where ppl have been partying on borrowed money and when the business cycle constricts they begin loosing everything. It feels like a noose around your neck...trust me I'm feeling it right now.

Wages need to go up for savings to be possible. That hasn't happened in the last 30 years. The average American of the non-rich has seen his income drop compared to inflation.

And they've been ok with that because credit exists. Only, as you said that doesn't work very well. And meanwhile, the rich have been getting richer. My company lies to its employees every year and says it can't afford raises at at ime like this, while it pockets a billion a year and the people at the top make $600,000 on average (and that number goes up every year).

I'm not saying the system isn't broken. But taxing the people like you and mean who are hurting the most more just fucks up the system more.

The reality is that not everyone can be rich and making the system suit the rich best is the most idiotically vacuous idea I've ever heard.

If I hadn't bought into the "credit for everything and everything on credit!" philosophy of the '90s I'd be a lot better off financially right now and perhaps the crash of '08 wouldn't have been as bad if ppl had saved rather than borrowed.

Oh, yeah. I agree. But what does this have to do with taxing the rich? When I said I want to tax savings, if you read it properly, I said I wanted to tax the uber savings and actually give the equivalent of better interest rates on smaller savings.

In the end, we need to start educating ourselves on how to live within the laws of economics rather trying to beat the laws of economics. It's kinda like Vegas...the house always wins.

I agree, but that also means we have to keep the system from fucking us over. The people who establish the laws are the people with the most power over them and we've given all of that power to the people who are rich who continue to fuck us over every day by charging more than they need to for their services, the people who removed our bargaining power, the people who pay you less to pay themselves more.

What we need right now, more than Tax reform is a renewed labor movement. There is a better tax system than what we have now, but I'd never claim that would fix all of our social ills. It might be do us better for reducing the deficit or encouraging bottom up growth, but it could never be the cause of a good economy. That's got to come from elsewhere.

At 12/25/10 01:36 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

C) Rich people in America don't ever pay the taxes they are supposed to pay. Due to all of the loopholes, the average rich person pays about 15% of their income. Everyone is currently paying 25% - 35% depending on what their pay rate is and whether the bush tax cuts are in effect.

So jacking up taxes is a great way to stop people from wanting to evade tax, right??

That's like saying its wrong to make a law to prevent murder because murderers will just want to evade the law.

D) High tax rates don't hurt the economy. We know this because during the most prosperous period of time for the U.S. (Post WWII up to Reagan), tax rates were well above 50% for the wealthiest (almost 90% at times) and that was the time period when the middle class did the best, we expanded our infrastructure, and generally did better than we did today.

WOW because correlation = causation, right?

No. I didn't imply that there was a causation effect. I implied this was a case where taxes were high and life was good; and that therefor we could conclude high taxes don't destroy an economy. I did not say that high taxes caused the economy to be good. Just that they didn't hurt it.

GUESS WHAT ASSHOLE, in the ten years following Reagans tax cuts, tax revenue INCREASED, and so did the tax burden on the top 10%!

But it is still less than it was before Reagan. And of course Tax revenue goes up as the population or the economy goes up. But revenue is not an accurate measure of what's needed over time. More people means more need for government, simply because there is more to govern: more property, more court time, more cars on the road, etc

You think we could have functioned on the thousands of dollars in tax revenue needed in the early 1800s today? What an idiotic argument.

But wait, more government revenue correlates to worse economic conditions..wait, according to the gum school of economics this necessarily means there is a negative and direct relationship between prosperity and tax revenue, right?
Right?

No, that's not true. Government revenue goes down during recessions and depressions because there are less people making & spending money. I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

That's why our debt went up so much the last couple years. The government wasn't pulling in nearly as much through taxes and had to borrow more of it.