Another interesting mechanic would be different types of attacks: thrust, slash left, slash right, slash down. The player can see the attack beginning and has a small amount of time to choose the correct defense to that attack. Choosing the correct defense reduces the amount of focus lost. You could also add shields. If you press block with a shield it'll block any attack with minimal loss of focus. Shields would have hit points and break if used too many times.
Mount and Blade is the closest game I've played to this. It still has hit points, but that makes sense for a medieval game where you're fighting heavily armored humans.
That's simply not true. Compared to any other country people in the US give far more.
"Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7 percent. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73 percent, while France, with a 0.14 percent rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19409188/
"If you tell a Dutch person you’re going to raise his taxes by 500 euros and that it will go to help the poor, he’ll say O.K., he said. But if you say he’s going to get a 500-euro tax cut, with the idea that he will give it to the poor, he won’t do it. The Dutch don’t do such things on their own. They believe they should be handled by the system. To an American, that’s a lack of individual initiative."
But it doesn't apply to Christians and non-Christians alike. Conservatives and especially Christians give far more time and money to help those less fortunate.
"Finally, the single biggest predictor of whether someone will be charitable is their religious participation.
Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money: four times as much. And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization:
"Actually, the truth is that they're giving to more than their churches," he says. "The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities.""
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730
You're misunderstanding Christianity. Jesus said: "For you always have the poor with you" Matthew 26:11. Christians don't believe that its possible to eradicate poverty. In fact we believe that society will continue to grow worse until the end. The point is not to build a utopia, it is to personally help those you see in need.
To think that the social welfare state is a natural outgrowth of churches setting up schools and hospitals is completely ridiculous. The two things couldn't be more opposite. Social welfare emerges as a result of the collapse of Christianity in a society. The Dutch will talk about how they don't think anyone should be without health care, but if they saw someone in need they wouldn't help them. I don't know which comes first, but people who believe in social welfare seem to believe they have no personal responsibility to help those in need. Look at the average giving of the Dutch or someone like Joe Biden who while talking constantly about compassion gave an average of $369 per year for the last decade. Social welfare leads to an almost complete lack of the personal compassion that is at the heart of Christianity.
I liked Atlas Shrugged quite a lot, but there were a few parts that seemed ridiculous. Specifically the idea that everything was about money. In the model society near the end the banker loans Dagny a car and says that it isn't free he's charging her for it. As he shows Dagny around he explains how they charge each other for everything. Even husbands and wives pay each other one way or another. I wouldn't want to live in a society like that. Making personal or even business relationships primarily about money causes all sorts of problems. People need to be paid fairly, but focusing too much on money destroys intrinsic motivation. I'll fix my parents computer for free because I want to help them, but I wouldn't do the same thing just for money. Even trying to keep track of how many favors I've done for my friends would cause too many problems. I help them when they need it and they help me, but no one expects that things be exactly equal.
The private sector could handle it. He points to private schools that are already succeeding with the poorest children. The problem is how to get the government and unions out of the way so successful ideas can be widely applied. I think a voucher system would quickly begin to solve many of Americas education problems. Such systems have already succeeded in Sweden and parts of the US.
Why would this necessarily be a benefit? This same argument could have been made at any time in history. For millennia humanity has benefited from converting resources from one form to another. What has changed?
Trying to be carbon neutral would have the obvious drawback of significantly slowing economic growth. Is there a benefit to being carbon neutral that outweighs this cost?
The Author said "So Obama will spend upwards of a trillion dollars of stimulus in a combination of tax cuts, building roads, bridges, and hopefully public transportation. And it can't hurt and maybe it will help." I can think of plenty of ways this could hurt.
Obama could create new entitlements that burden America for generations. The money could be used to prop up failing businesses, creating a situation where success is determined by who has the best lobbyists.
Not every loan is a bad idea, but plenty of them are. There is no guarantee the effect of this loan will be positive.
I certainly see parts of Atlas Shrugged becoming reality in the current financial crisis. If failing businesses continue to be propped up on a large scale it won't be too many years before the US economy grinds to a halt. If the productive are constantly taxed to help the unproductive the incentive to create wealth will disappear.
On facebook you can release any app without approval. The only time you need approval is to be added to their app directory. I don't think facebook ever bans apps without a tos violation.
Komodo is the best that I've found. I like vim for editing individual files, but I prefer the mouse for jumping around a project. Komodo has decent vim key bindings and so I get the best of both worlds.