The first third or so of Far Cry 3 was brilliant. Far Cry 4 was probably technically a better game, but it was nearly exactly the same game and I'd had enough of it by then.

Maybe if they change it up enough it will be good. What made the first part of Far Cry 3 so good was how novel and threatening the environment was. You'd be making your way carefully through the jungle, paranoid about tigers and stuff and then you'd hear a car coming and you'd scamper off into a ditch to hide until it passed. It was awesome. But after a bit, you figured it out and had lots of guns and bullets and you didn't have to care anymore. You just picked an icon on your map and walked directly towards it, machine-gunning anything that got in your way.

If they could somehow distill the essence of playing Far Cry 3 for the first two or three hours into the whole of Far Cry 5, they might have something. I don't think it's possible though.

"Bullet caught on camera"

It's like the doctors have given you second and third opinions and told you your liver is failing, you have to stop drinking or you'll die. You won't die the next time you have a beer, but every beer takes you farther over the edge. You can say the bartender who knows this is blameless for serving you, because others gave you the alcohol that destroyed your liver and it took longer than one night, or you can work from now and realize that he's intentionally killing you in hopes of a tip before you stumble outside and keel over.
Working from today, our planet's liver is failing, there no transplant, and Trump just reopened the bar and is serving everclear. Chances are he can't accelerate things so much that Florida submerges in the next 3 1/2 years, that doesn't mean he can't make things be far worse, beyond the point of possible mitigation.

You may hold that theory, but climatologists disagree. We are past, but still near the tipping point, and every ton of CO2 takes us farther from a survivable rise. It's ridiculous to think that we're already past holding at 3.5 degrees global rise (edit: the maximum assumed to be survivable by civilization), so we might as well make it 5 degrees.

Island nations, people who live South of New Orleans, and millions of others are already being displaced. It only takes one high tide (edit: or one extended drought) to wipe out low lying farmland permanently, and erosion has become an unstoppable force.

Trump is moving towards raising the level of multiple greenhouse gases we produce, Obama had us lowering those levels. Time can only tell what that actually means in tonnage, but 180 degree turnaround is awful enough. I agree, we also didn't do enough under Obama.

? Reversible means it can be reversed, not that it's easy. I don't know where you get that idea. Irreversible in this context means sending the temperature trend the other way before civilization becomes unsustainable. Eventually the planet should normalize unless we really follow Trump's lead wholeheartedly, then we might go full Venus. There WAS a magic bullet, being responsible with our atmosphere, but we argued over climate change until it was useless.

If, before it reverses (which it may not do at all, btw) the planet becomes inhospitable to humans, then for humans, it's irreversible. In 4 years we can do enough damage to 1) make the effects longer and harsher enough to make long term survivability impossible and or 2) go beyond the next tipping point where feedback loops reinforce each other, leading to a Venus like runaway greenhouse effect. We're damn close to massive methane releases (already happening) and if we don't avoid that, nothing will save civilization.
All that said, Clinton probably wouldn't do enough to avoid disaster either, but at least she accepted the science and agreed we should make efforts to mitigate the coming damages.

I'm definitely a pessimist, mostly because I understand the systems and human nature, and so I think we're totally hosed as a species.

I appreciate your argument, but I don't share your alarm.

Displaced by sea level rise (which would be a gradual thing, but I agree very serious), combined with droughts/floods might potentially fall under "decimation". But only, I think, to the historical definition of 10% dead. Include wars resulting from territory and resource squabbles (should that count as fallout of climate change?), and it could be (much) worse. But still not on a 4-year timescale.

Second, if we're already "way past the tipping point", it logically follows that blame for that can't really be laid on Trump. His policies can certainly make things worse, but I think that 4 years of terrible climate policy in ONE country on Earth (granted, a country with a lot of influence) simply aren't going to be catastrophically, drastically worse than 4 years of magically ideal climate policy (even in a hypothetical scenario where Nader or Stein or Clinton or whatever ideal person was president and could dictate perfect climate policy without being filtered by congress).


So to answer your question, basically no, I don't think that "raising our emission levels exponentially while advocating closed borders will have an irreversible negative effect on the planet and humanity."

One, "exponentially" is an exaggeration. US emissions under Trump won't be an order of magnitude higher than they were under Obama, or would have been under Clinton. In the range of 10% to 50% higher seems well possible, but 100% higher (double) would be next to impossible. Worse, yes. Exponentially worse, no.

Two, "irreversible" is a word I would hesitate to use because it carries an implication that there is some magic bullet to immediately fix things. If a plague wiped humanity off the face of the Earth tomorrow, it would take some time for climate to adjust to pre-industrial levels. Like you said, it might take 25-50 years before things even could start getting better. But eventually, it could be mostly like we were never here. Some things about climate would never be the same, but in broad terms, things could get back to "normal" eventually.

On the other hand, if the plague wipes us all out on the last day of Trump's 4 years in office, it might take longer for that adjustment to happen. But not by a comparatively massive margin. So that's why I dislike "irreversible"; depending on what timescale you are referencing things are either already irreversible, or pretty close to a statistical wash (what's another 4 years in a recovery timeline of 250 years, or 100 in 10000?), or not worth worrying about at all (on a geological timescale that doesn't care 2 cents about things like species extinctions). Does that make sense?

Finally, "negative effect on the planet and humanity" is something that I totally agree with. And that negative effect will be real and significant. But I don't think that the walking disaster that is Trump will make things inescapably, horrifically worse. Not enough worse that it makes a persuasive argument to me that I should have voted for Clinton (again, I didn't vote for Trump, but I didn't vote for Clinton either).

I dunno. Maybe I'm a cockeyed optimist.

True enough---may I step in with what I was taught? (and therefore am totally unqualified to teach but this is the internet so...)

From the beach, look for the breaking waves (the top of the wave is turning white and then crashing down in a curl and splashing into that confused white foam); waves break because the bottom is shallowing out and the bottom of the wave is "dragging" on the ocean/beach bottom (gross oversimplification; please don't shoot me with Nerf bullets).

Then, as you watch the "break", look for the last place it appears on the front of the wave (it will progress down the face of the wave, 99% of the time, moving left to right or right to left)--that's a clue about where the rip is.

Another clue is a place in the horizon/beach where the waves never breaks, or where two breaks converge on a section of different colored water, maybe sandy (flushing beach sediment) and darker (the water is deeper as a result)--that's a an interesting spot to watch for a while.

Examples of all this?

Look at the 26 second mark, between the two wide set white arrows to the left; imagine what that looks like from the beach---two sets of white wave fronts converging from left to right, and right to left---with green water and an unbreaking wave between them. You can imagine surfers launching from the left heading to the right, and launching from the right and heading to the left, outracing the white water behind them, right?

Another spot is the 48 second mark; the camera starts low, more from a normal person's eye level, then rises up to take the bird's eye view...
See it? The white breaking waves on either side of what becomes the highlit "rip"?

Finally, the 1:08 second mark---again, the white waves on either side of the non-breaking channel...that's the main rip---I dunno how you'd see the feeder...maybe use the Force?

Anyway, hope that helps.

Ah of course, it won't be a bullet-proof metal skeleton with glowing eyes to bring humanity to it's knees. It'll be millions of flying robots. And they'll probably be invisible soon too.

It sounds to me like you were totally her dick under glass, and she got pissed that someone else might break that glass, and more pissed when you didn't appropriately react to her generous decision to finally break it herself. Clearly she expected you to have been pining for her and excitedly jump at your chance.
I think you dodged a bullet there.

The first time I remember learning anything about a (fictionalized) version of this weapon was in Goldeneye for N64. But I remembered it (known as the RC-P90) having an 80 round capacity in that game.

That didn't set off any alarms for me, but an interesting note was made here:
The FN P90 only holds 50 rounds in its magazine. It is speculated that the RC-P90's 80 magazine is actually a mistake due to directly giving the RC-P90 0x50 (that is, 80 in hexadecimal) bullets rather than 0x32 (50 in decimal).

Kind of a funny quirk for a CS nerd like me. Get your hex right, programmers!

Couldn't agree more! The writer is pretty fresh and the director(s) are stunt guys. Beyond that, I don't know much about the production, but both John Wick and John Wick 2 are precise and well choreographed gunfu with elements of the Matrix/Indigo Prophecy, Hitman, Assassin's Creed, Bruce Lee movies, and on and on. Star power, as well.

I have Jack Reacher (same writer as Usual Suspects), John Wick, Collateral (Michael Mann), and Jason Bourne in the same stack.

In 2002, when I was studying film I had a chance to listen to Doug Liman, the director of The Bourne Identity talk about the making of the film. He hadn't really done much at the time, but now he's in the thick of these highly stylized, star powered, accurate (bullet count, stunts, etc.) Action flicks.

Reminds me of the joke:

They weren't trying to teach you to swim. That is like when they shot at you they were trying to teach you to deflect bullets.

Bullet-proof armor?

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For the police that are pulling out, your countercurrentnews quoted the Dan County Sherrifs office as pulling out and not planning to return. The local news link they reference though tells much more than just the biased spin countercurrent put on it. Sheriff Mahoney cites the reason for pulling out was that their agreed on involvement was only ever for the week they were there and no future funding was offered so they would be sacrificing local services to go back.

Even more glaring an omission if Mahoney is to be championed as countercurrent did, he described his officers experience at the pipeline as follows:

“Our people have shined, they report they stood in line and were confronted with baseball bats and tire irons and being sprayed with wasp spray,” he said. “Our deputies said there was a need for law enforcement.”

The full local story free of countercurrent's extremely prejudiced and biased stripping is below if you want a more full story. Surprisingly, the police officers aren't all just showing up on the protesters own property to start shooting them with water, tear gas, and rubber bullets while the protesters huddle up and sing kumbaya.

http://m.bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/sheriff-in-wisconsin-pulls-deputies-back-from-north-dakota-pipeline/article_c0378e3a-8e57-59f1-99
75-781c35bf1ee1.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

@bcglorf

interesting how you classify the protesters as angry mob and rioters.

see,
this all on tribal land,owned by native americans,who welcomed this "angry mob" and "rioters" and the police are there NOT at the behest of the tribal elders,but DAPL,a private corporation attempting to push a private pipeline,for private profit,through privately owned land.

DAPL had even hired private mercenaries to keep the landowners off their construction site,who used attack dogs,mace,rubber bullets and worked alongside the police.it got so bad at one point that they had pulled police officers from FIVE states to keep those pesky landowner rabble down!

on a good note,those ancillary officer teams bowed out after a few days,saying that it was immoral and they were unwilling to participate.so the "police" you are referring to are most likely private security.

Funny how the perspective you tell the story from changes it entirely even while keeping to the overall same facts.....and then add some context.

democracynow has been doing excellent work on this situation,as has countercurrentnews:

https://www.democracynow.org/topics/dakota_access

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/11/north-dakota-becomes-first-u-s-state-legalize-use-armed-drones-police-defend-illegal-pipeline/

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/10/ohio-swat-state-police-deployed-north-dakota-crack-dapl-pipeline-protesters/

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/11/sheriffs-leave-standing-rock-saying-completely-unethical/

and if you wanna berate those hiring the private thugs:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/dial-a-cop-20161031