So, The real question here is which one was the Alpha. What one had the stronger beat, and had the rest time up with it?

For a long time, I slid the keyboard to the left and used my left hand on the 10-key because I found it a lot easier to center on--I found that it was too easy for my hand to drift on the alpha keys. Eventually though, games got complicated enough that I ran out of keys within easy reach of the 10-key and had to re-learn with WASD.

Battle of the Alpha Males.

Alpha: Not you, you lost the Bird. Now, you must wear the cone of shame.

Dug: I do not like the cone of shame.

1:57 alpha AF.

Alpha? I am not Alpha, he is... ohhhh.

I threw down $40-50 on SC a long time ago. A few months ago I played through some of the new sections of the alpha and they were pretty awesome for an alpha. The little bit of alpha I played was more immersive than anything I played in Elite (of which I paid $75 for).

One of the coolest things I did in the SC alpha was stowing away on a huge ship. I mean these vessels are massive. Now, if they didn't fly like pieces of cardboard - that would be nice.

I really don't care how long it takes.

I recently picked up the Mustang Alpha with Squadron 42 combo pack in anticipation of 3.0 (I got in just a couple or few weeks ahead of the 2.5 release). I still prefer Elite Dangerous at the moment, and really wish the ED devs would be more communicative the way RSI/CIG is. If SC can deliver on a good portion of their stuff.... we'll be in for a treat. It amazes me we can have such a big world that seems so seamless the way ED and SC do...

I can't imagine the amount of work that one will have to do in game to earn enough in game money to buy such a thing... I'd have to assume it would be via a guild/corp/organization with lots of members grinding away and making contributions for such a thing. Still, would be cool to fly a ship up into one, then walk around it.

Yeah, looks okay. I gave them the $40 or whatever they wanted three of four years ago. It is starting to look like that investment may pay off in another year or two. In the meantime, I have no interest in alphas or betas or whatever. Wake me when it's done.

Coal is massively dirty, but even if you do run it through clean burning plants, the main danger is not the smoke.

Coal contains trace amounts of radioactive materials. Depending on the 'dirtiness' of the coal, the true problem is that by mining it or burning it, you separate those trace amounts. Larger amounts of coal ash or coal tailing(s) from even your average coal will give a geiger counter fits.

Do you want to know the fun part? The coal industry has buried studies and lobbied for legislation that makes TENORMS (technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material) unable to be regulated the same as any other radioactive waste. So if you live in a coal producing or burning area that creates ash or tailing ponds, you can be sucking up the same amount of alpha particle radiation as if you were in the vicinity of a nice large pool of nuclear waste.

Ain't coal grand?

First Contact has three unforgivable flaws.

1. The time travel plot makes zero sense. Why do the Borg need to go back to that particular time to assimilate humanity? Why don't they go back to pre-WW3, where there were a) more humans to assimilate and b) lower tech weapons? Why do they need to interrupt the moment of humanity's first contact with the Vulcans? Why do they give themselves such a tiny margin of error by only giving themselves a few days to assimilate Earth before the deadline? Why don't they send Borg down to begin assimilating humanity straight away? And the Enterprise conceals itself from the Vulcans by hiding behind the fucking moon.

2. The writers fundamentally ruin the idea of the Borg by giving it a figurehead it doesn't need. They are not a collective if they have a Queen; they are subjects.

3. Worst of all, Picard's characterisation is a complete volte face. Seven seasons of the TV show proved that Picard just isn't a man who stoops to revenge. Only a year or so after recovering from his own assimilation, Picard has the chance to cripple or destroy the Borg forever and he doesn't take it, because he's a man of balance and pragmatism, not of blind rage. His sudden change into Captain Ahab is lazy and it's unearned. Picard, like everything else in the film, is dumbed-down for the sake of the action, and the character as written undermines the work done over the course of the TV series, amputates him from Roddenberry, and is frankly unworthy of being performed by Patrick Stewart.

Star Trek: First Contact is fucking dumb.

Of course I have to concede to subjectivity and some of the action is very exciting (if still stupid; the "no firing at the deflector dish oh except when you do" incident is a prime example). But it's only possible to enjoy it as an action movie if you like your action movies to appeal to the very lowest common denominator.

I wonder if they have considered what happens if this 100GW beam misses it's target and shoots some unsuspecting alien in alpha centauri? It would be very hard for the aliens to see this as anything other than an aggressive act.

One of the things chimps will do is drag tree branches around for use in dominance displays in which they run at rivals, hair on end, screaming, throwing rocks, making as much noise as possible.

Jane Goodall described one of her chimps who discovered he could bang gas cans together to create an enormous racket, and in the use of which artificial aid he rapidly advanced from relatively low status to alpha.

Chimps use tools in other ways such as when 'fishing' for termites, or most incredibly for me, making absorbent sponges from chewed up leaves or moss. They learn these behaviours from each other: some chimp groups use some tools, some use others, some use none, and innovations spread rapidly within groups.

Admirable indeed it is to save a life, any. But this is not the issue, the issue is HOW she "saved" it. Allowing the elephant to be boss inside the house is not equipping it for the rest of its life unless it will become the alpha in her house for the rest of its life.

So onto my original premise: liberals are short sighted:
She did make a choice to save the elephant and as we all agree this was a noble and admirable thing but short sighted in not seeing beyond the immediate good feeling for rescuing an elephant that it needs to be prepared for the rest f its life and short sighted in letting it into the house in the first place not seeing that that would establish a precedent would not be realistic in the future.

So... she should have saved it from the water yes, taken it home perhaps if it needed medical attention, but the ideal would have been to return it to its herd. They would have received it. So if the herd was not found then keep it outside as close to what nature would be like until it could be re-introduced to the wild.
So when you rescued all those animals did you let them sleep with you? Eat food out of your plate? Let them run wild and do whatever they like? I'm sure to a degree yes but as a whole no.

By the way thank you for saving those animals.

And again, spoken like someone who doesn't seem to know anything about the game.

Large portions of the game are available to play right now, albeit in an early alpha state. Granted, yes the procedural planets portion is not in our hands yet, but as OverLord just showed, it appears to be working.