Question of the Day, Feb. 28, 2010

[Wicky_42]

Spoiler: snip

I like how everyone is saying "cloaking device", when it is a "game technology" poll and pretty much every cloaking device in games only makes you invisible to the "untrained" eye. Gravity gun would be pretty fun and make it easier to move/lift stuff around when moving. Start a moving business and make a ton...

Only practical use I can think of for power armor is hunting down Al Gore and punching him in the face for being a moron. Global warming my ass. Ever since they start spreading around that bunch of lies it has gotten gradually colder every year. Not to mention the people that still go on about it being a problem make me laugh and lose any respect at all for them.

you obviously have not been where I live...in canada...it was 10 celsius yesterday...

Years ago, maybe 5-6, it was 70+*F on January 1st, and I was out mowing my yard. Nobody was going on about global warming then, and ever since then, it has gotten gradually colder. This winter, it has snowed three times, when we usually get nothing. Over the summer, it got about 80* for a week, then never went past that when it is usually 90+* for a few months. It is going to take a lot more then some shit Al Gore can come up with to get me to believe in global warming.

Dude, that's why it's called 'climate change' by scientists - it's not about EVERYWHERE getting hotter. God, someone would think you didn't even know what you were talking about...

Umm, smart one, climate change implies that at one time the climate WASN'T changing. Scientist just say that it is climate change now because they realized it was getting colder and didn't want to look like dumbasses to those who have enough of a brain to think for themselves. The climate is ALWAYS changing... oh wait... oh fsm, it is getting darker outside, and later in the day! Oh shit, we need to take action against global darkening and global time change before it is too late!

Or perhaps climate change is a reference to the impact our industrious nature is having on a global ecological scale, rather than scientists being worried about night time or the majority of the world's scientists being in on some terror conspiracy. We've what, tripled the previous atmospheric carbon dioxide level record for all time in this planet's history, and CO2 is a basic greenhouse gas. Lets put 1 and 1 together and think, for a second, that perhaps that's going to have an impact. There's plenty of other material for discussion, but as a basic first step, that should be enough to get you started.

They predicted that the weather would be significantly colder in the UK for a couple of years, then temperatures would begin to rise and guess what? 30 year record lows in temperature this Winter. Just because you weren't listening doesn't mean they didn't call it.

Record lows here too, but still, you are missing the point. The climate is always changing and global warming was a load of shit. You even said so yourself. If it was real and wasn't shit, why would they need to change the name to something else? Something that has been going on since the beginning of time?

Ah, so the fact that we have increased a known global environment-changing gas to THREE TIMES the quantity it has been during ANY historic event, that there have been a number of un-seasonal weather events and climate changes that scientists have predicted have occurred, you're still denying that anything is happening because scientists call it climate change, whilst initially politicians referred to it as climate change a couple of years back?!

On the grounds of a re-branding of the threat, you're going to play sceptic? Wow, that's a well thought-out position, congratulations! Perhaps it's you who's missing the point.

And I didn't say 'global warming was a load of shit' - on a global scale that is indeed the case. Global temperature rises have caused the receding of the ice caps and collapses of ice shelves and permafrost. Islands are getting flooded as sea levels rise. So, theoretically these could be purely natural occurrences, but none the less the climate is changing and we have changed the balance.

They have proved the the temperatures gradually go up then back down over time. The same dumbasses going on about global warming now were going on about an ice age back in the 70's. Sure, I wasn't alive back then, but I guess I missed that in the history books. But, I give up. It is like trying to talk to someone who believes in god...

Mate, it's the same from here, only you're putting blind faith in nature and humanity, ignoring evidence and science. I mean, who cares what the world's experts have to say, right? It's probably just a conspiracy to make everyone scared, right? Yeah - cos that's what scientists do.

Yeah, sure they've "proved" global warming, and they've also "disproved" it. If it was actually proven, then there wouldn't be an argument, now would there? You've stated no evidence of science that backs up anything. All I've gotten from this is "they said it was going to be colder this year and it was, there for they are right about everything". If I found a piece of wood that was from the Trojan Horse would that mean the entire Iliad was true? No. Like I said, talking to someone that believes in god. They just listen to what others say without the ability to think for themselves.

So you honestly believe that we have had no impact on the world? Why?

Because I've heard that science says that there is global warming. Science says that there isn't global warming. Science says that either 80% or 95% (don't remember which I heard) of the green house gases in the atmosphere is caused by water vapors. Science says that there are more volcanoes now that are causing it some shit to go up into the atmosphere causing it. Science said there was going to be an ice age back in the 70's. Science says that the Native Americans produced more CO2 into the atmosphere with their... erm... slash and burn tactics or whatever it was called that they used to burn down the forest when moving from place to place than we (United States) did during the entire industrial revolution. Science says that Pluto is no longer a planet...

As you've probably noticed, some of those are obviously false and contradicting. I've learned that science is biased and they will even lie to get money, like most everyone else. What I've come to realize is that when neither party can state their side with valid proof, then the only thing I can trust is my own understanding. Same thing applies to religion with me, the whole concept of "God" is just too illogical and contradicting for me to believe in.

My theory with the whole world warming up and getting colder could have possibly been due to the Earth's orbit. Who said that it stays in the exact same place while orbiting? Who ever said it couldn't drift closer to the sun, causing it to get warmer, or further way, causing it to get colder? If over the past 2,000 years it has been gradually getting warmer, then maybe the Earth is slowly losing momentum and is gradually drifting closer to the sun causing the Earth's atmosphere to warm up.

That last is almost one of the recognised theories - apart from the 'Earth losing momentum' bit, cos that's just silly. IIRC, the Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical, and some of the global temperature rise has been boosted by a slight closening of the Earth's orbit. However, the increase in temp is too great to have come from just that. There are many affecting factors - no-one is denying that.

The important point to take away is that we are one of them. The simple fact that we have been burning natural oil reserves alone is testament to that: those reserves represent millennia's worth of plant growth locking up carbon from the atmosphere, sealing it underground. In just a century we have burned a RIDICULOUS amount of it.

Couple in intensive cattle farming (and the associated methane production), industrial rice growing (which also produces a lot of methane), and a host of other factors and you start to see how much humans have contributed to changing the climate.

Of course, there are titanic natural contributions - warm seas releasing carbon dioxide, methane swamps thawing over in Russia somewhere etc - but largely these seem to escalate climate changes, rather than be the cause for them.

Perhaps it's too late to change anything, and we should just sit back and hope there's enough generations between now and global catastrophe that we don't have to worry. Or perhaps we could address what we KNOW to be worsening the problem, and seek ways to preserve the world in the life-supporting state it is in now.

 

[londelen]

Cloaking device, but only because the portal gun is stopped by walls, so I can only teleport things in my line of sight.

 

[tofulove]

Cloaking Device, I could become the predator... provided I gain a muscle mass that of a gorilla, found some other alien tech, and had an thermal mask.

if you had the portal gun you could get all that and still have a portal gun

Really? How? You mean with the portal gun it increases my muscle mass? It somehow transports me to an alien planet even though I would have to be able to see the said planet to get there? I can see the thermal mask, but honestly, I could just buy a thermal visor and a make a mask. How would I get the invisibility cloak? Your logic is flawed fine sir.

use portal gun to sneak into secret government place, get your stuff and sneak out... its a what if question, cant i have a what if place. plus don't need muscles for power armor, play fallout 3 it gives your a str bonus as well as the super slick armor.

 

[Snowalker]

Cloaking Device, I could become the predator... provided I gain a muscle mass that of a gorilla, found some other alien tech, and had an thermal mask.

if you had the portal gun you could get all that and still have a portal gun

Really? How? You mean with the portal gun it increases my muscle mass? It somehow transports me to an alien planet even though I would have to be able to see the said planet to get there? I can see the thermal mask, but honestly, I could just buy a thermal visor and a make a mask. How would I get the invisibility cloak? Your logic is flawed fine sir.

use portal gun to sneak into secret government place, get your stuff and sneak out... its a what if question, cant i have a what if place. plus don't need muscles for power armor, play fallout 3 it gives your a str bonus as well as the super slick armor.

Hardy har har. Ok, fair enough, still I'd rather go with my cloaking device, I could still do what you were just talking about and I wouldn't have to lung around a portal gun.

 

[tofulove]

Cloaking Device, I could become the predator... provided I gain a muscle mass that of a gorilla, found some other alien tech, and had an thermal mask.

if you had the portal gun you could get all that and still have a portal gun

Really? How? You mean with the portal gun it increases my muscle mass? It somehow transports me to an alien planet even though I would have to be able to see the said planet to get there? I can see the thermal mask, but honestly, I could just buy a thermal visor and a make a mask. How would I get the invisibility cloak? Your logic is flawed fine sir.

use portal gun to sneak into secret government place, get your stuff and sneak out... its a what if question, cant i have a what if place. plus don't need muscles for power armor, play fallout 3 it gives your a str bonus as well as the super slick armor.

Hardy har har. Ok, fair enough, still I'd rather go with my cloaking device, I could still do what you were just talking about and I wouldn't have to lung around a portal gun.

ya but it could have super secret government traps, can get around them with portal gun, plus i bet the portal gun is not very heavy, because it was made with super secret government metal that is as light as super secret government birds. which were made to be a lot lighter than regular birds.

 

[oppp7]

Well, lets see...
Gravity gun: You can't pick up stuff that's beyond your weight. Funny thing about physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when you try to grab a large crate from across the room there's a good chance you're going to launch across the room instead. This could be used as a grappling hook, but that has it's flaws too. So maybe it's good for sodas and such? Some how I think I can live with getting off my ass and getting food from across the room instead of using a heavy gun to cause it to fly at high speeds at my face.
Portal gun: A little better. It might have uses, such as faster travel, but pretty much all of the things in portal would be impossible. Remember, Cell had special footware to survive falls. Without that, your gun is basically only good for easily getting across a room. Oh, and lets not forget that bending space requires rediculous amounts of energy, more than humanity will probably ever produce. So once the original batteries run out for either this or the gravity gun, that's it.
Cloaking device: Lets ignore those complaints about invisibility from Cracked considering real cloaking devices are possible without those issues. At first this seems like an awesome idea; you could sneak into movies, steal things, watch women in the shower, mess with your friends... The possibilities are great. But lets put this into perspective. You won't have much of an immediate need for it unless you're trying to hide from danger caused by other organisms. The other stuff is mostly illegal. Once you get caught at something (you probably will, since there's always sounds, smells, and touch you have to worry about) you will probably be charged with many crimes and occurances around the neighborhood. Most likely the device will be confiscated and you'll get a jail sentence of a few months at least. But what if you just used it to play pranks on your friends? That would get old fast.
Power armor: Having a powerful suit of armor has many uses, and not all of them are recreational. First off it beats the others for safety. While the cloaking device is great against enemy attackers, the power armor would protect against just about anything. The downside is that that armor probably has a high energy cost, but even then it's only 3rd on this list for energy costs. And unlike the first 2, the energy costs could probably be met. The last and final reason is a little bit of cheating. The description just says power armor. What kind of power armor? The super speed power armor? The flying power armor? You could have a cod piece in it to making using the bathroom easier. And lets not forget that you could fill it with all kinds of programs and applications, such as music players and other handheld devices. Yes, there is a chance that it could get stolen, but the same goes for the other stuff.