LaVache

When I was young I collected Baseball Cards, not as means to profit although that collection I have stashed is probably worth something, but as an end in and of itself. I would research the players, study the stats, watch old baseball games, study the history and rules of the game and spend hours looking through my collection. Autographed cards with documentation were a collectible step up from non-autographed cards and I found it interesting to look at the actual signatures. Everyone signs their name differently and it was a curiosity to me at the time. I was never hugely into that aspect as it was either expensive or travel intensive to build a large collection of autographed cards and I had very limited resources since I was so young. Still, I did derive some pleasure out of attaining the small number of autographed cards that I did. So for me the personal pleasure I got was the end and I found it quite rewarding. *EDIT* Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson were my favorite players if anyone cares. My Grandfather was always a big fan of Mickey Mantle's play and recently got a very handsome autographed photo to hang on his wall. It serves as art and a reminder of bygone days.

The arm chair quarterback in me wants to say that I would unequivocally choose to save my own life, but I can't deny the possibility that when faced with the horror of killing an innocent person I might come to the conclusion that the act itself might have such a damaging effect on me that I would rather die than live with my actions. Option three is right out and might even be immoral.

I wouldn't get too excited. The Press Release is from last year, and Multiverse doesn't have anything about a Firefly MMO in their Upcoming Games page. I loved the show, but I think that Joss is pretty much done with anything Firefly related. He hasn't even come out with a sequal to the Firefly comic (which was the best selling comic the month it came out and has a 1 on the side implying that more were supposed to come). I can't blame Joss, if that is the case. He poured a lot of himself into the show, which died, and then several years later poured a lot of himself into the movie, which didn't do very well in the box office.

Seems like most colleges require you to know Java before you can transfer into their CS programs or require you to take Java as a freshman. So if you're interested in getting a head start for that, you could give Java a try.

I enjoyed his posts a lot and would like to offer my condolences.

They might have VERY mild cases, but I doubt it. Both are brutally honest in social situations, past what many would consider polite, and both seem trouble understanding why people act the way they do in some social interactions. Rearden is extremely out of place at a party and I doubt very much that he has any idea why anybody enjoys them. Both also have focal interests, Architecture and Metalurgy. The time that they spend on these interests is beyond the norm, but not unhealthy in any way that I can see. It is much easier for someone with Aspergers to socialize if they are either in small groups or talking about their focal interest, but they do seem to act much more naturally with each other than would be expected. It would be more accurate to say thay Rearden and Roark act superficially like someone with a very mild case of Aspergers, but without much of the deficits. Here's a little info on the genetic portion of Asperger's (it's a mild form of Autism, which the article points out about 2/3s of the way down) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17630334/wid/11915773?GT1=9145 .

I have Asperger's (extensive psychological testing was done at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) and I make do socially. I don't tend to go out and meet new people, but I have a few friends and I'm both comfortable and happy with that. I tend to hyperfocus on things (World of Warcraft among others), but all it takes is a little nudge (dude, you've been at that for a while) to get me headed in more productive directions where that very same focus can give me an edge. *nutshell* Like most things, Asperger's isn't the end of the world and you'll adapt to it with time, and if you have it you've probably done a great deal of adapting already.

I'm not suprised at all by the claim that the global mean temp is politically driven, so much else in the global warming debate is, I just wish they would have put a little more of his argument in that teaser exerpt.

That'd be because I didn't have any sources nearby (didn't feel like rolling around in internet Al Gore type propoganda...but I guess I will next time to avoid the village idiot role) and couldn't remember what kind of timeline. *EDIT* Thanks for the awesome info Thales, I really appreciate that and will try to dig it up on my own next time.

AFAIK the question as to whether or not the average global temperature has been increasing over the last decade is not in question, which seems to be the very definition of global warming (short term). What we don't know is why. Many scientists claim that it is because of our use of fossil fuels. I think that they are evading the reality that the global climate has flucuated from much colder than now to much warmer than now before fossil fuels were widely used. *EDIT* This doesn't mean that fossil fuels don't play a role in global warming, but we can't pretend we know how large of a role until we better understand carbon absorbtion by the environment and the warming effects of cosmic rays. I've heard that roughly 18% of greenhous gases are the result of domestic animal's digestion (I've heard this number multiple times, but I don't have a link to the study...so consider yourself warned), so I doubt that SUVs will turn out to be the big bad wolf in the global warming scenario.

I can understand, to a certain extent, why Miss Rand would spend her time perfecting her philosophy instead of formulating part of it and then spending huge amounts of time with peer-reviews, but are there any current plans to present her ideas and defend them in a peer-reviewed format (or is this already being done by the people you linked to in your post?)? I saw that Tara Smith has published some works, but are these peer-reviewed or in the vein of Miss Rands non-fiction?

Aren't collective nouns treated as singular if the members of the group are acting individually?

DavidOdden, could you suggest a good grammar text? I'm a bit rusty on some of the fine points and would like to brush up.

Sorry, I meant to write "industrialist hero." I'll go edit that now *EDIT* I can't edit, it's been too long.

The same rights as anyone else (I assume retarded in this sense means having a low IQ, and not being a vegetable or something). What they wouldn't have is the right to force you to support them.