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Maarten

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Posts posted by Maarten

  1. According to the Wiki, you can buy diamonds for your company. The benefit of the organization would be that you could buy other materials for different types of companies. This is part of the co-op thing I mentioned, but there would have to be some good rules for it. I'm not really in position to be thinking about pooling money or starting a company, so I haven't given much thought to it yet.

    That is correct, but companies are only allowed to buy raw materials in their own country. Norway doesn't have diamonds and noone imports them, so I cannot buy them there =(

  2. Go to the Monetary Market tab, it's right below the marketplace. there you can select to buy any kind of currency using gold, or vice versa :)

    Donating doesn't automatically do that, but we could agree on something ourselves. Either that or I can pay you back in a little while once I start making a profit =P I had some moochers come in yesterday who worked with 10 wellness and produced less than I paid them...

    It's kinda annoying that you can't set a minimum wellness level or something for hiring people, because right now all you can do is fire them after the fact and you've already paid them =(

  3. One thing I just noticed is that we need to have an organization to buy raw materials for companies outside of the country... does anyone know if you start out with any gold so it would be possible to maybe pool a few gold per person and start one? I don't have enough money myself right now to make an organization, and I will run out of raw materials (diamonds) in about two days otherwise :(

    We need 5 gold total for that; I have about 2.5 myself..

  4. I bought a company just now. I made some job openings there in case anyone wants to work for me; I'll make sure you get paid above average wages as long as there's some profit left afterwards ;) Then we all profit!

    The company name is Benevolence Inc. It's a gift making company so it's mostly useful for those people who do manufacturing work. Message me if you need a specific skill level job, or if you're currently getting paid more. We can work something out then :D

  5. I can join the Gullpartiet, they're center right Libertarian oriented, and also have almost half the seats in congress. One problem is just that everyone uses Norwegian, which might make it hard for us to stay here in the long run if there's a lot of people speaking a different language in every day life....

    Maybe other countries use english more?

  6. Dry ice isn't that expensive. We used to order something like 50 pounds for the lab for maybe 15 dollars? the only problem is that even in a -80 degree C freezer it sublimates fairly quickly and after a few weeks it's gone... And that was in styrofoam boxes that probably do a fairly good job of insulating it.

  7. We're in Norway right now, Jan Mayen region. Make sure to click someone's invite link to get some extra gold rewards for the team =P

    As far as productivity goes, you can actually make an organization that owns a lot of the companies; you can have 1 of each type of company (grain, food, metal, houses, etc), so that's really nice. One thing we do need is enough work force, but as an owner you dont actually need to work in the place yourself.

    But yeah, I also got a raise today. Some people seem pretty good about giving you raises to keep their workers! :)

    I think in the longer term moving to Moldavia would be cool because of the taxes and because it's so small; and we can always import basic resources and turn it into more valuable items. A country doesnt really need to produce all its basic resources, after all :)

  8. Moldavia is kinda cool, although it's a small country with only grain resources. But it has 380 people total, and one area only has 20ish. It also already has very low taxes, which would make it easier for us to get rich. I think as long as we import goods and sell the manufactured stuff the actual resources shouldnt matter too much.

    Alternatively, we can go for thailand which is currently occupied by Malaysia, and try to free some of the provinces. However, that country has 800 people just by itself, and if it has any allies I really doubt we could fight and free a province there. Also, their taxes are worse, but they do have very good resources...

    Maybe try for Moldavia and see if we can make a difference there by voting and getting some companies going? How does everyone feel about that?

  9. Pretty much the only downside is that that area doesn't have any resources; we can move to Thailand in the long run as it has a lot of oil, and that region is also very empty. Either one would work, really :pimp:

    Also, if you have extra money, buy some gifts and give them to people to boost their wellbeing. I'm doing that as much as i can afford, too, and it'll help us get stronger faster :)

  10. Okay, I checked and Thailand apparently merged with Malaysia, which has around 700 citizens right now. I'm not sure if we would make much of a difference there. But we can definitely try, because it seems like a more remote part of the world than most places.

    I think I'll move there and start building some local currency and stuff :)

    If you're new, you basically just save up money until you are high enough level to be allowed to move places. Just make sure to train and work every day! :)

  11. No, happiness is the result of achieving goals. So you should first introspect about your goals. Properly, your primary purpose is "existence", and all of your actions should be judged as good or bad by that standard. Now you can't just "exist" as a nothing, to exist means to exist as something, which means you must discover what your nature is. The biggest indication of your nature is the career you are pursuing; there are other things that are relevant to your nature. So for example if you want to pursue a career in weight-lifting, then bench pressing 1000 lbs should make you happy, and writing a book of poetry would make you less happy (if happy at all). OTOH if you wanted to be the next Robert Frost, then you probably would not get much out of bench pressing 1,000 lbs and would get much more out of getting your first book-acceptance. Happiness is determined by your goals, so happiness cannot itself be a goal.

    But isn't happiness the ultimate purpose in life? It definitely provides you with motivation to live in the sense that it furthers your self-esteem. But I do think I see the distinction you're making; that you pursue goals to further your life, and doing that makes you happy. Pursuing happiness directly without taking into account how your actions affect your life would be counterproductive because it's akin to taking short cuts, and those don't work.

  12. I actually like french presses best; they're certainly better than any drip coffee I've ever tasted =) It just gives the coffee a much fuller flavor, and it tends to be less acidic in my experience. It is kind of a pain to clean them all the time, but that's a small price to pay for a cup of good coffee =)

    I usually use Tanzanian Peaberry for my coffee; it's got a very nice, fruity flavor.

    Also, I made a coffee mug that says: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem on the sides =P It's pretty awesome.

  13. This is pretty bad. The diversity director of the FCC has some grandiose plans to "reform" the radio industry.

    CNS article about this

    Lloyd proposes six initial goals for wresting control of communications from the corporate interests he claims control it. As his book details:

    1. “End the federal subsidy of commercial media, particularly cable and broadcast television. Broadcasters should pay for the great privileges of a federally protected license to operate a business by using the publicly owned [radio or television] spectrum.”

    2. “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded at a substantial level. The CPB board should be elected, [with] eight members representing eight regions of the country (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Plains States, Southwest, Mountain States, and the Pacific Coast) and a chairman appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

    “Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” said Lloyd.

    “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. … Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs. … Spectrum allocations should be established that create clear preferences for public broadcasters ensuring that regional, local, and neighborhood communities are well served,” he added.

    3. “The FCC should be fully funded with regulatory fees from broadcast, cable, satellite, and telecommunications companies. The FCC should be staffed at regional offices, matching those CPB regions, at levels sufficient to monitor and enforce communication regulation.

    “Clear federal regulations over commercial broadcast and cable programs regarding political advertising and commentary, educational programming for children, the number of commercials, ratings information about programs before they are broadcast, and the accessibility of services to the disabled should be established and widely promoted.”

    4. “Universal service support provided by all commercial telecommunications providers (whether they are classified as information services or not) to fund access to advanced telecommunications services should be expanded to all nonprofit organizations, including higher-level academic and vocational schools, community centers, and 501© (3) organizations unaffiliated with either business or government.”

    5. “Postal subsidies should be fully restored to small independent nonprofits presses. Postal subsidies should be reduced for commercial and business operations. The postal service should be returned to congressional control with the central mission of ensuring that all Americans have access to the post.”

    6. “Public secondary schools should be required to include civics and media literacy as part of their core curriculum. Testing on civic, media, and computer literacy should be required and national standards set.”

    For those who think any or all of these recommendations might infringe on the free speech rights of broadcasters, Lloyd says his concern is not the “exaggerated” concerns over the First Amendment.

    “It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press,” he said. “This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”

    “[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance,” said Lloyd. “[T]he problem is not only the warp to our public philosophy of free speech, but that the government has abandoned its role of advancing the communications capabilities of real people.”

  14. That was H1N1? I thought it was a new hybrid strain.

    I think it was that one. It was just the first time in a long time that it came by, and now most people are much more resistant to it so it doesn't hurt people as much any more. Especially because it happened right after the war, it hit many underfed people, soldiers in fairly miserable conditions who were shipped elsewhere (which probably helped spread it), and general lack of immunity. I think that was the main reason older people didn't die as much, because I think the flu strain was similar to one that hit in like 1880ish, so they had some exposure to it.

  15. In virtually every situation where you can smack a child, you can also just physically restrain them until they've calmed down a lot. Wouldn't that be the better way to go; seeing as to how it's much less forceful?

    And if they're too big to restrain, they're probably old enough to listen to reason. Either way you really don't need to smack them.

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