st_dux

@Hans Ludwig: The United States most certainly was a capitalist state throughout the whole of the 20th century, arguably excessive government intervention notwithstanding. The core economic system was still one in which the means of production were privately owned. Relative distribution of wealth has nothing to do with what I said. My point was that capitalism is directly responsible for the greatest and most rapid rise in the overall standard of living, and this is a fact that really isn't debatable. From 1000 to 1820 (1720 years) the world economy grew to about six times its size. It is at the end of this time period that capitalism had just begun to spread widely, and in the years following through 1998 (178 years), the world economy grew to about fifty times its size, which is nine times per person on average, and this was substantially higher in heavily capitalist, industrialized nations such as those found in Western Europe. The historical evidence is quite clear: Capitalism works. Is everything fair? Of course not, but I would argue that there is no way to make it fair without bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator, i.e., destroying wealth and the average standard of living. I also see no reason why fairness should even be a goal. Life has never been fair, and not everyone contributes equally to society (nor could this be realistically expected).

Capitalism is directly responsible for the greatest and most rapid rise in the standard of living for the greatest number of people in all of recored history. It's certainly not perfect, but it is vastly superior to anything else that has ever been tried. Every historical attempt at a society where the economy is planned and the state owns the means of production entirely has resulted not only in failure, but massive, millions-of-people-were-killed-in-the-process failure.

It's astonishing to me that you can disparage capitalism for its wage slavery and exploitation of the working class while simultaneously praising the USSR under Stalin. The rapid industrialization of the USSR was chiefly the result of two things: vast supplies of natural resources, and the systematic exploitation of a massive workforce by the state (not to mention using prisoners as actual slaves). The human cost of this industrialization is unlike anything ever produced by capitalism, and the "prosperity" that it created was not enjoyed by the workers at all: In 1933, workers' real earnings plummeted to about one tenth of what they had been in 1926 (source), and this never improved substantially. Meanwhile, collectivist approaches to agriculture created catastrophic drops in productivity, leading to famine and the starvation of millions. Real successful. Nothing does this better than a market. Markets define how resources ought to be used. All any plan can hope to do is get as close to emulating this as possible, and as history has shown, humans aren't capable of getting that close.

Try disabling "engage" missions with this line: <group> enableAttack false This will disallow the AI leader from telling his guys to individually maneuver toward enemy units like idiots.

This clip was made before Fukushima, but I believe it's still relevant: http://youtu.be/Usg7-xbQOcM A handful of isolated incidents is hardly reason enough to end all nuclear power, especially when there are no alternatives available that are nearly as efficient.

A planned economy will never work. The problem is not one of computational power -- it's more fundamental than that. Even if we had access to the most powerful computer imaginable, we still wouldn't have the slightest idea as to what to input. The economy is based on billions of constantly changing variables. It cannot be planned efficiently; to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.

This is where would-be proletarian revolutionaries such as yourself depart with reality and enter into a world of pure idealism. Without a police force, the means of production would be confiscated by those with the biggest guns, not the workers. A majestic workers' paradise, where everyone gets their "fair share" and is allowed to live a life free from exploitation, is not possible. Attempts to create such a situation lead only to an increase in violence and decrease in overall wealth.

You mean there are people who actually think this is a worthwhile feature?

And you don't think this has anything to do with the USSR's failed experiment with "communism"? The only time that "socialism" has worked in history is when it has been overlaid with an economic model that is essentially market-based. Attempts to forcibly destroy the market system have always resulted in tragedy, Mao's "Great Leap Forward" being the quintessential example of this. You're not wrong in your assessment that capitalism leads to exploitation, or that most people really don't have much choice when it comes to work. In theory they do, but in reality, they don't. But exploitation didn't start with capitalism, and it won't end if capitalism ends. Exploitation is an essential quality of life; all life exploits what it can in one way or another. As long as life exists, this will be the case.

Keynesian economics and Austrian School economics couldn't be more different.

ArmA 1.

It's shameless marketing. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually was Takistan... and it was taken using ArmA 2.

The archaic animation system is by far the engine's biggest pitfall. I don't see how you could pick anything else.

+1 to this. Although it isn't really a "war movie" in the traditional sense, more people need to see this excellent film.

It's not that there's a limitation, but you might find it easier to use the following code: _eastCount = {side _x == east && _x distance (getMarkerPos _marker) <= 175} count allUnits; _westCount = {side _x == west && _x distance (getMarkerPos _marker) <= 175} count allUnits; I'm assuming that the marker is a circle and that 350 meters is the diameter, but you could of course change the number if that's not the case.

This actually isn't true although it's a popular miconception. All scripts will exit when there's no more code left to run.

How big is the marker?

Blood Money had some cool aspects to it, but it was also a little too easy compared to the previous games. Before Blood Money, you usually only got one chance to knock someone out for a disguise, and he would wake up eventually, so the disguise was temporary. Blood Money changed it so that knocked out victims stay knocked out forever and gave you unlimited knockouts via the "human shield" ability. As if that wasn't enough, you can actually achieve SA on most levels just by rushing through restricted areas, ignoring all of the angry people shooting at you, and running up to your target for a quick garrote; for some reason, the developers made it so that witnesses aren't counted if you're in a restricted area being shot at. Of course, you could rightly recognize these as exploits and limit yourself to not using them (I did), but it's still a shame that these problems exist, especially since they didn't in the previous games (I'm not counting the first game, as that one was just a mess). My personal favorite of the series is probably Contracts. It's darker themes are interesting, and it allays some of the more frustrating aspects of Silent Assassin (extremely slow sneak mode, time-consuming chloroform, inability to save) without sacrificing much in overall difficulty. Here's hoping that Absolution takes the best aspects of each game and perhaps adds some new mechanics without dumbing things down too much.

Yeah, the Hitman story was always kind of ridiculous anyway.

Yes, vanilla ArmA 2 has utterly inaccurate rocket ballistics, but this is old news. ACE fixes this problem.

Wind and other renewable power sources are not even remotely close to being able to meet the world's energy demands by themselves. Nuclear power is still the way forward, and it is unfortunate that this disaster will once again foster an attitude of inane paranoia that will serve only to hinder progress in the field.

Great to see that our resident conspiracy nuts are already on the scene, ready to show us all the light. Thanks MrCash and Iroquois Pilskin!

Some headphones do this, yes, but there's really nothing more "true" about it. You only have two ears. Strictly speaking, all surround sound is simulated -- simulated by your brain. Your ears take in sound from two sources, and your brain automatically dissects that sound and figures out where it came from based on subtle differences or cues in sound intensity and arrival time. With speakers, having multiple channels makes a difference because the sound is coming from a location that is spatially separated from your ears. With headphones, however, the environment is completely controlled: All of the sound is being directed right at the source of your audio input, your ears. This means that software solutions are utterly adequate for emulating the differences in sound that lead your brain to believe that it's coming from various directions.

Headphones with more than two channels are a gimmick. There is nothing that you can achieve with "7.1 surround headphones" that you can't achieve with two channel headphones, provided that you have a decent soundcard.

There is no need for a hold waypoint. Just synchronize the waypoint where you want them to wait to the radio trigger; they'll continue on to the next waypoint after the trigger is fired. As for the ambush scenario, you can make the AI hold fire by using setCombatMode.