Aceflyer

True, though Powerball cheats by using bots, and The Complex has 0 pop 24/7. Don't mean to offend, but is there a particular reason why using bots in a ASSS zone constitutes 'cheating'? And yeah- The CompleX has 0 pop 24/7 but it's an SSC zone as far as I know so I thought it was worth mentioning here. But I agree that the 'significant' ASSS zones on SSC are HZ, HS, and PB.

Hyperspace is not the only SSC zone that is ASSS. Powerball and Hockey/Football Zone are also ASSS. I believe The CompleX is ASSS as well.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Might be better to send out a New Year's message instead. Adding advertisements to TW forums probably won't help with population. I think advertising should only be done to raise money if needed to keep TW core components up and running.

MERVBot.com now uses PHP, nothing fancy really but it's something I promised I would do. One of the things I've done is to start splitting the pages up into several PHP pages with includes so stuff like the navigation bar and the footer are globalized, making them less of a pain to change. I think Rii and I still need to clean up the template code on some of the pages and then I'll globalize the header and the rest of the template as well. And once the template is all cleaned up and the appropriate stuff is globalized I think development work will be done for the site, and we will only continue to update and maintain things as warranted. I know we were planning to add fancy features such as allowing developers to directly upload and update their plugins on the site but given that we haven't received so much as a single submission in months I'm not sure that adding these fancy features would be needed.

I don't even remember, I bounced around a variety of aliases before settling with Aceflyer in early '07.

First computer games? Minesweeper, Space Invaders, the Realspace Saga, Pacman, geez, the list goes on. First multiplayer/Internet game? Stellar Frontier.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Not bad.

Lynx, I want a source for this 95%/5% figure you're bandying around. I also want a source for your claim that 95% of patients lie to their doctors.

Ideally, they should. In reality? For most doctors, doesn't happen. When we get to the day when we know enough of medicine that it becomes a science rather than an art.

Actually medicine doesn't change all that fast. And even if it did, it would probably be easier and faster to update a computer program than to get all the doctors around the nation up to date.

Update: Stellar Frontier's source code has officially been released, under a shared-source license.

Moderate leaning slightly left.

So funny.

Yes.

Yes.

Maybe so in Britain. But in the States, there are doctors who will refuse to prescribe or even inform patients of the MAP - something I strongly disagree with, btw. Depends on who you're talking about. I never said the pill was lethal. But it is still a judgment call the doctor has to make. Interesting opinion, but it doesn't change the fact that medicine is far from a hard science. If medicine were as simple as you seem to think it is, we wouldn't need doctors. We'd be able to make computer programs that any layman or pharmacist could use to obtain a prescription. Again, not consistently true in the States as far as I know. (I could be wrong though, haven't really looked into this issue in years.)

Excellent news: Gay couples can now begin to wed in Connecticut. [1]

But there are such adverse effects. Depends on how you define 'perfectly safe'. Again, in an ideal situation as I said, a doctor would give all his/her patients all of the options. But in reality this is just not feasible or practical most of the time. Which is unfortunate. It could be surprising how very blurred the line between 'professional opinion' and 'personal belief' can get. Again, I feel compelled to point out that I, personally, in fact, am absolutely against, say, pro-life doctors denying women access to the morning-after pill or to birth control pills. I merely feel that I have to approach this logically, which unfortunately results in me arguing a position I actually oppose.

You're still paying the doctor for their opinion. Medicine is an art - not a hard, black-and-white science like, say, mathematics. Doctors' professional opinions are necessarily based not only on their objective knowledge but also on their experience, feelings, instincts, and beliefs. Even many/most objective/quan!@#$%^&*ative results in medicine require an accompanying subjective analysis and judgment call based on said experience, feelings, instincts, and beliefs. Hence, unless one argues that people who are religious, or pro-life, or ... should be denied the opportunity to practice medicine, then having doctors who refuse to prescribe certain medications is, unfortunately, inevitable.

She's not being forced to do anything. If she feels that her job responsibilities include actions that are 'immoral', she is perfectly free to quit her job. But as long as she does her job, she must perform her job responsibilities in accordance with the law, as that is what she is being paid to do. If for any reason she is unwilling to perform her job responsibilities in accordance with the law, then she clearly needs a new job. She is not being asked to do anything that is not part of her original job description. Her job involves conducting marriages in accordance with the law. This has not changed.

You go to JHU right? Sucks for you. We have a two-day vacation (Monday -and- Tuesday) here at MIT.

I agree here. Unlike clerks or pharmacists, whose jobs do not involve making judgment calls, doctors' jobs actually involve making judgment calls. Every decision about whether or not to prescribe a specific medication or whether or not to recommend a specific procedure involves a judgment call about what the doctor believes would be best for the patient. You can't regulate how people think. In the case of a pro-life doctor, for instance, he or she is not going to think that prescribing the morning after pill is best for the patient. You can't force the aforementioned doctor to make the judgment call that prescribing the MAP would be best for the patient. On the other hand, ideally I do think all doctors should provide all patients with full information on all scientifically relevant medications or procedures. But this is not realistic due to time constraints, due to the fact that many patients wouldn't want to get confused with such an overload of information, and due to the fact that not all patients would be able to understand all the information.

Yes, and I think the woman really has no right to complain. Her job does not involve making judgment calls. Her job involves performing certain actions in accordance with the law and with her job responsibilities. It is the same with the pharmacists: their jobs do not involve making judgment calls. Their jobs involve performing certain actions (i.e., dispensing medication) in accordance with the law and with their job responsibilities. On the other hand, it is not the same with doctors. Doctors' jobs actually involve making judgment calls. Every decision about whether or not to prescribe a specific medication or whether or not to recommend a specific procedure involves a judgment call about what the doctor believes would be best for the patient.