A less presumptuous name.

Originally Posted By: Sylae Edit Reason: true to SW form, this topic will now be about politics, philosophy, and/or science, with many gigantic posts every five seconds The one redeeming factor is that most of those posts are either highly technical, in which case you can ignore them, or they consist of quotes, which you have already ignored.

Answer: someone glues more wood onto his nose. Thinking outside the box.

And fortunate for me, those are the only engines that I've ever used. I'm a newbie, I guess.

Originally Posted By: Skwish-E He also laughs when he tells the truth. Now if he had said he ONLY laughs when he lies, we would have a conundrum. So I was trying to say this earlier, but managed to confuse myself and forget the loophole I had found.

Totally dark caves were by far the worst part of the pokémon video games. I like how spiderweb does darkness - it can be a little harder to see things, particularly switches, but you don't have to go run back and buy a candle every time you find a new cave.

Originally Posted By: Nikki. All I've used it for is cutting random things one time when we found it. That about describes my use for every blade that I've ever owned or held.

The problem with a flat tax rate like that is that it doesn't take into account cost of living. For a family in a rural town in the Midwest, that seems like a pretty decent amount. For a family living in NYC, that's a huge amount. Let's bring this back up after this year... after I've finally taken an econ class.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba The hardest part is usually finding the correct form to download. That seems to be the case to me. I'm still a minor, but I filed my own return for last year. Pretty much every drop of information is on your W2 (which you get from your employer) and you just copy that onto your state and federal returns, and then attach a copy of the W2 to the return if you're mailing it in. My dad has been using TurboTax for a long while now, and he knows which forms to use, so he can pretty much plow through the returns for my family in a few hours. Also - the best part of being a minor is that I get all of my non-welfare taxes back. The tax bracket for minors doesn't start until you get to some pretty serious income (at least, serious to a financially dependent minor). The worst (and it's not really even bad) part is that I didn't get much back since I didn't pay much in the first place.

My dad has a chainsaw. After our "hurricane"* my dad found it necessary to replace the old one (the chain kept slipping) with an upgraded model. But no, I have not used one. I have actually heard of people using chainsaws to carve ice sculptures. Apparently the professionals can produce incredibly intricate sculptures in remarkably short times. I'm sure can back me up on this. *it wasn't really more than a long storm in my area

Originally Posted By: Dantius Originally Posted By: Master1 EDIT: See also - round off error. Not to mention that we would then have to make sure every tax-paying citizen knew math up to maybe the pre-calc level. That's a pretty steep step for some people, unfortunately. 1. Accountants 2. Table of values 3. Significant figures. Originally Posted By: Master1 but that would just be smart. We can't have that.

Originally Posted By: Lilith the tax rate for each bracket isn't charged on your total income, it's only charged on the fraction of your income that falls into that bracket so if the tax brackets were, say, 10% up to $10,000 and 25% above $10,000, and you earned $10,001, then you'd pay 10% on the first $10,000 and 25% on the last $1, for a total of $1,000.25 in taxes I've actually wondered much about that myself, but have always been too lazy to look it up. Thanks for the info. Originally Posted By: Dantius Wouldn't it just be so much easier if tax brackets were replaced by a single monotonic increasing function of income that you'd just evaluate, multiply by your income, and subtract any deductions from? It's be so much easier than bothering with pages of tables of tax brackets and "subtract line 4 from line 5 and mix according to page 5 in Joy of Cooking" that we have now. I'm sure that a system like that would be much easier, but that would just be smart. We can't have that. EDIT: See also - round off error. Not to mention that we would then have to make sure every tax-paying citizen knew math up to maybe the pre-calc level. That's a pretty steep step for some people, unfortunately.

Depends on the diamonds. Industrial diamonds are small enough that you probably wouldn't feel much unless you rubbed your hands against it, and any sort of diamond could be set in so that only a single smooth face is exposed.

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. LIGHT YEARS ahead in technology A light year is a measure of distance, not time, and certainly not technological advancement. Perhaps we should make a unit for technological advancement. Or is that what the <material> ages are all about? Originally Posted By: Jukai Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. Karoka, the laws of physics can not be broken. Not exactly true. Yeah, I'm pretty much here with Lilith and Stareye. If, under certain circumstances, previously conceived notions of how the universe change, those exceptions become part of our established "laws" of physics. And saying that the laws of physics may not work say, regarding singularities in black holes - would it not be more fitting to say that the laws of physics contain a set of laws specifically for those conditions. Laws that differ under specific circumstances. EDIT: sorry if I'm beating a dead horse, I didn't see page 3.

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. It becomes hostile? well that sucks Originally Posted By: Lilith nope! he's all "welp, you're no use to me now. get the hell outta here." Not selling you stuff is not the same as wanting you dead, and it certainly isn't the same as trying to make you dead.

I think the main city will still deal with you, but people in his particular zone probably won't.

Some of the middle class mystery may have to do with the poverty line. Does the poverty line separate the lower and middle class, or does it separate the impoverished from the lower class?

Are you sure about them being chainsaws? I know diamond-tipped saws have been around for a while and have many industrial uses, but I've never heard of them being in the form of a portable chainsaw, although I guess that it makes sense for on-the-site cutting.

Originally Posted By: Kelandon That is, there's a strange middle space occupied by people who have enough income not to qualify for grants but not enough cash on hand to pay outright. I think those people are the people we're talking about, the "giant loan" crowd. Many people are daunted by the size of the indebtedness and end up not being able to attend universities to which they were accepted. I know that happened to me when I applied. This. Because of our income, we have very little demonstrable need for most schools, and are thus left to pay the majority of the price for schools. Due to our family size and financial situation (remember that housing market crash that happen right as we were forced to move half way across the country?), we aren't able to meet nearly as much as schools think. Thus, both of my brothers are coming out of college with high loans. My brother still in college went to a school not participating in the National Tuition Exchange Program (the benefit of having parents teaching in colleges), and will be coming out of school with debt up to his ears. Sure, he could have gone to an in-state public school, but his quality of education will be far better. And because of oversight in the demonstrable aid programs, this is the case with lots of upper-middle class families.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Last time I checked, not even all the Ivies had made that promise. ... the education isn't actually better there, at the undergraduate level. Point being, the middle class isn't being squeezed out of anything. I'm pretty sure most are. Looking at the Ivy League's page on financial aid, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, UPenn, and Yale all offer 100% demonstrated need commitment. I know that their education isn't really better at the undergrad level, I was merely using them as an example of institutions offering exceptional financial aid to those who qualify. And the middle class is being squeezed out of Ivy undergrad, although that's not worth too much. The bigger problem is the decrease in top tier schools offering merit aid. Originally Posted By: Alorael, Lilith, Randomizer —Alorael, who read a study in China ... Really? When were you in China? The article doesn't actually surprise me. If you find it, I'll give it to my dad as more ammunition in his "Liberal Arts are Awesome" spiel.

Originally Posted By: Californian Having said that, I got the digital copy of the Avadon hint book, but I don't want to print it out because it's in color, and color ink is too expensive. (I have a Lexxmark printer that has black ink for less than $5.00, but the color cartridges are more like $50.00) You should be able to, in your print menu, select an option to print in only B&W. I know that's on option on most older printers.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I wonder whether there aren't American state universities where you can do that, if you're a state resident. University of Maryland, Baltimore County is the nearest state school for me. It's pretty much your average state school. The instate tuition is a touch over $9000, and the room and board is roughly the same. If I were to live at home and cut my R&B costs down to practically nil, I'd still not make enough in a summer (working around 30 hours a week) to cover tuition. With a few years of working in high school, like I do now, I would be able to come out with very little debt, maybe none at all. But education is hardly free here. At the other end of things, you have the Ivy League schools, that have promised full aid to families making below a certain amount, I think $60,000 annually. Programs like this help make quality education accessible to the lower class, and it's always been available to the upper class. The middle class is, as usual, getting squeezed out of top tier education.

Next time we look at the top posters: Originally Posted By: Top Posters Join the Navy, Lilith, Randomizer, etc I had to triple check the order, because Alorael has me thinking that Randomizer is above Lilith.

I don't know whether to facepalm or laugh...

I believe that the saves are compatible. I remember people asking about it, and I think Jeff said to just move the save files over. Don't quote me on that, though.

Dantius's skewed views aside, I'll respond with what I can. RE: AP Arms Race. Yes, they do look good for college admissions, but only in a limited degree. I take AP courses to stay with my peer group (as much as possible, as more and more people are shoved into the classes), to challenge myself as much as possible, and to escape as much gen-ed as possible. RE: Gen-ed and higher ed. You should look into the European (or at least British) system of university. It's far more specific - you go to university with a field in mind, you get groomed for the field, and come out specifically for that field. I remember a while back, though, this topic came up. It was mentioned that many people in America end up in careers unrelated to their college/university focus. Is there correlation between a liberal arts education and this phenomenon? Is there causation? And if there is, in what direction? I will chip in my parents' two cents here. They've been working for small liberal arts colleges since they came out of grad school, and they'll live and die by the quality of education. My dad says that a liberal arts college teaches you how to think, and allows to to succeed in almost any field, whether or not you focused on that field in college.