Bay 12 Games Forum

Educate thyself, computer user.

So what you're saying is, the research team implemented a plan to make research teams obsolete

Not quite, but it's along the path of that.

Which is, like, ideal. Humans are pretty bad at a lot of things, but we're good enough to make tools that are better at it, whatever it is. Or at least make tools that can make tools (that can make tools, etc.) that are.

Though yeah, as per EB, even something that can "just" (scare quotes because there's nothing merely satisfactory about that) winnow out the dead end designs in a comparatively short time frame is basically a gorram coup for a design team. And everyone else in their field. And eventually most of the human species, as the design/research teams waste less and less time on pointless junk and more time on breaking the physical world and its optimal forms over their knee. Efficiency, not laziness. Or both. Motivation don't matter much so long as it's getting results.

Nooooo, no nuking. We need that sort of program. That's how we make major strides in material science, engineering, and all sorts of other things. Autonomous iterative improvements come up with stuff humans are terribly unlikely to chance upon, and can bring pretty impressive gains in certain fields. Think it was some kinda' wicked effective antenna that serves as a good example of the results?

There's going to be a lot more coming in the near future, though, as we're either at or near breakthroughs on the programming side of that sort of project. Which is good! Massively good. The stuff that's going to come from it is likely to advance some of our sciences by years... possibly decades or more.

Civil unions = tax benefits anyway yeah?

Depends a lot on the area. In many places in the US (and presumably elsewhere) civil unions don't entail the same suite of benefits (which go beyond tax benefits fairly substantially*) that marriage does.

@Baffler: The real reason the state gives tax breaks for filing jointly honestly has jack-all to do with dependents (though that's one of the nicer smokescreens involved) or various administrative benefits. It has to do with a lovely little thing called "joint and several liability", which means if your partner screws with the IRS, the IRS can come after your arse. They take a little less from the pair in exchange for being notably more likely to get some out if one of the two decide to try to stiff the state. There's some social engineering going on, too, but that's the major practical reason. Somewhat less return, notably increased reliability.

*The legal perks of marriage extend to all sorts of things, from the taxes, to inheritance and property ownership differences, hospital visitation, sometimes ruddy credit issues, there's just this fairly massive list, and one that comes with some pretty major tradeoffs, too (i.e. if you file jointly on your taxes and your partner screws up their side of things, the state can come after you to pay, just as one of very many examples). Is one of the reasons I occasionally advise someone to talk to a lawyer before they talk to a priest (/county official). State-recognized marriage is a hell of a legal step. Civil unions often don't entail many of the same legal repercussions.

Can only guess you got in to some bad wine. Next time make sure it's not paint thinner in a wine bottle :V

Have you seen fancy wine glasses? Some of 'em would work just fine. And that's without going straight to the bottle. You occasionally hear about a medical call to help someone that got stuck.

... seems pretty obvious that it's because UK isn't actually using the land for pastures, innit? It's just classified as such and... sitting there.

Though. With those numbers, unless my eyes are borking out or I'm misunderstanding something, 43289>42984. I mean, by a bit over 300 mi², but still. It doesn't even remotely explain why UK farmers are apparently crap at doing the whole grazing animal thing despite roughly the same amount of land investment, but...

PTW, rural > urban.

Not sure europeans actually know what rural is. States can lose entire european countries in its rural.

Whatcha actually want, though, is rural-enough that's under an hour from an urban area (note: There's a lot of places in the states that don't really qualify for that). Then you get the relative quiet and low prices, and still be able to drive to somewhere that's not Bigotsville the Empty (and actually has jobs, which is also good!) without it taking most of a day.

Also NC. NC is pretty alright. Nice mountains, better weather than florida (which may be damning with faint praise, but whatever.). Shame the government there has legally mandated to ignore the ocean as it floods the place.