MALADROITHIM'S PROFILE

author=kentona link=topic=389.msg11779#msg11779 date=1207840880
No. It is not a joke. It's very real.

But the flow chart is a circle and there is no step called "resolve conflict". It is like saying I NOW PATENT MY BUTT. NOBODY ELSE IS ALLOWED TO HAVE BUTTS.

author=kentona link=topic=389.msg11772#msg11772 date=1207837411
Is the patent system that broken? I hear that the number of patents approved every year have skyrocketed

And yes the patent system is completely broken. There is a cottage industry of sleezy firms who hire young engineers to come up with every design imaginable and then file patents for them. They do this clandestinely and file so many that it isn't really possible to keep track of them. They then wait for enterprising entrpeneurs to independently come up with the same thing and start marketing a product. Once the company has made a lot of money with their product, the sleezy firm steps in, sues for everything the company is worth, and forces the company to shut down. This by the way is not to the benefit of the American people.

Popular examples are rumble in video game controllers and the D2L software that most American companies use (just recently the owners of D2L lost a huge patent lawsuit and the program will be taken offline at a specific date in about one month -- incidentally this is one week before finals at most universities).

There is also a patent for the use of a laser pointer as a cat's toy. Laser pointers are not themselves patented, but if anyone puts a picture of a cat on the packaging of a laser pointer or suggests that among its many uses it is a great cat's toy, they will be infringing on a patent.

This is all because the government (I believe it was a Republican administration in the 80s) decided that the patent office should finance itself through patent fees and receive no additional funding. Historically the patent office had been primarily funded through other taxes granted to it, and not by its own fees, which were a small variable. The result was that the patent office was now left unable to pay its own bills -- unless it started accepting a ridiculous number of patents. The result is what you see today.

author=myersguy link=topic=841.msg11680#msg11680 date=1207703957
Now, picture this, you are a man, you go and store your sperm somewhere, get a sex change, come back, and use your own sperm to become pregnant. Have that child, and you have a real mini you!

This is not that unlike how an angler fish reproduces.

The females are the digusting ones that you think of when you picture the angler fish. The males, however, are small and eel-like. What the male does is bite the female on the outside (like on the stomach or whatever) and latch on, like a lamprey does. The male holds on for many months and eventually the female's skin grows into it and the male is incorporated into the female's body. Then, the male's organs are dissolved, including its brain and heart, and it's entire body with one exception -- the male testes remain. They are now, however, the female's testes, as the male fish has been destroyed. The female, which now has testes, reproduces with itself.

Curiously, one female angler can serve as a host for up to a dozen or more male anglers. Personally, I think it's probably the coolest reproduction method ever.

author=demondestiny link=topic=841.msg11766#msg11766 date=1207807293
it would give him some good training on being a woman if he breast feeds the kid and so on.

. . .

author=myersguy link=topic=841.msg11761#msg11761 date=1207804878
also, the male will have to do the breast feeding, won't he. AWKWARD!

The child will probably be fed with formula. There is a large movement of people who think formula is more nutritious than real breast milk (there is much research to support this). Whether or not that it is true that formula is better than real milk, it shows that it is probably not harmful to raise a child exclusively on formula.

author=demondestiny link=topic=878.msg11702#msg11702 date=1207724738
Though i don't weigh much as i have a good matabalysm. (did i spell that right?)

When in doubt: www.dictionary.com

It really doesn't take that much time to look up words you do not understand or can't spell and it's a great habit to get into.

(No, by the way)

author=Veridianne link=topic=841.msg11467#msg11467 date=1207293516
On a side note, in a world of %50 percent divorce rates (vast majority of Western countries), if two consenting people want to love each other, more power to them.

I just want to mention that this statistic is very misleading because for many people their first divorce is not their last. It is just as common to find someone who is on their fifth marriage as it is to find someone who has lived their entire lives in a single marriage. The people who remarry frequently (I am not implying this is unethical) greatly inflate the statistic.

author=Darken link=topic=858.msg11651#msg11651 date=1207681555
The main reason why most people like XP/VX is because they think their game is going to be great because they can have a bunch of slapped on 'systems' (copy/pasted scripts) that are all flash no substance. Not to mention they're grahpic whores.

. . . man I don't even know what to say.

author=Darken link=topic=858.msg11651#msg11651 date=1207681555
but XP's engine is horrible and VX is a joke (lolchipsets).

I would honestly like to see someone use more tiles than VX allows by default without having something fundamentally wrong with their workflow.