For everyone asking: We had 60k “every single day” hard-core users (1m total MAU). Only 2.9k of them subscribed/donated. We needed 15x that.

That's what happens when you input a shitty system instead of making fixes that people want.

Also, their site is down now.

Do not play Dark Souls.

If you can't appreciate Halo CE, you were probably just born when it came out. There was nothing like it out at the time to compare, and it was a phenomenon.

Yeah - but most games in 2001 were shit. The best piece of shit is still crap.

Oh! Ah! Science

NASA on Monday announced new evidence that could confirm the presence of liquid water on the red planet, increasing the possibility that astronauts journeying to Mars could rely on the planet's own water for their drinking needs.

"Liquid water is a sexy topic, and we’re like the thousandth time someone has discovered water on Mars," Lujendra Ojha, the Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate who led the research announced Monday, told The Post. And there's a good reason that liquid water is so "sexy": Mars is now the only planet in our solar system to show evidence of the stuff on its surface, other than our own. Other worlds have it in subsurface oceans, or scattered around as vapor in the atmosphere. But Mars is the only place where we have solid evidence for liquid that sits right there in the open air.

While it would be a major leap to suggest that Mars might harbor life -- even microbial life -- liquid water at least makes it possible that parts of the planet are habitable.

The study builds on research from last April, when scientists using data from the Curiosity rover noted that the planet had the seasonal potential for liquid water. We know that because of the extremely low pressure on Mars, water has a boiling point of just a few degrees Celsius, after which it evaporates. The April study noted the presence of perchlorates -- a kind of salt -- which could make the boiling point of Mars's water much higher, theoretically allowing it to remain liquid. They posited that the planet's temperature would be right for liquid, perchlorate-filled water to form every day during winter and spring.

In theory, water that periodically turned liquid before evaporating could form geographic features often spotted on the planet that look like the slow crawl and retreat of dark, damp sand, which are called recurring slope lineae (RSL).

In the new study, published Monday in Nature Geoscience, a different group of researchers took the search for perchlorates one step further: They went looking for them in the very RSL features thought to be formed by salty liquid. They found perchlorates in abundance -- and it seems like they've been getting hydrated.

Ojha and his colleagues used the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to check out the chemical composition of the wet looking streaks. They used a technique called spectroscopy, which keeps track of what spectra of light an object absorbs in order to make conclusions about its composition. With this technique, scientists can identify glass, ice, and other substances from miles above the surface.

"We’re going to places where we thought we were seeing the presence of water and finding chemical evidence of perchlorates," Ojha said. And the correlation goes further than that: The hydrated salts seem to disappear in areas where RSL weren't forming anymore, or were shrinking.

"We're observing the leftover molecules of water in the salt," Ojha said. "We're finding evidence that they're getting hydrated."

Morten Bo Madsen of the University of Copenhagen -- who co-authored the April study, but wasn't involved in the latest work -- said the new results were significant.

"[The] flow of liquid salty water is no longer just a possibility; it does actually occur," he told The Post. "The results shows that liquid does indeed flow on Mars today."

Ojha's work confirms that hydrated salts seem very likely to have something to do with the formation of the wet looking streaks on Mars. But there's more work to do to confirm the presence of liquid water itself. Ojha pointed out that the MRO's resolution is too low to pick up many of the smaller "wet" features on Mars, and that a new orbiter could get even more information -- especially since the MRO only allows us to examine Mars's surface at what Ojha believes is the driest point in the day. Eventually, the hope is that a rover can take a closer look at the streaks themselves.

If liquid is truly forming on the surface because of these salts, it's still extremely volatile -- it should evaporate at just 20 degrees Celsius or so. But it could create pockets of the planet where microbes can survive, even today.

And in theory, it could be extracted and used by astronauts on a Mars mission. Perchlorates could be helpful in their own right, too -- they can be used to make rocket propellant.

"If we ever go there, we could probably utilize this. We wouldn't have to bring tons of water," Ojha said. "This stuff seems like science fiction, but in 100 years or so it could be fact."

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 07:16:25 PM

Quote from: Mr Psychologist on September 27, 2015, 06:43:34 PM

Quote from: Josh55886 on September 27, 2015, 06:40:30 PM

Quote from: Mr Psychologist on September 27, 2015, 06:36:08 PM

I'm uh... not pleased to hear that all the shit that I spent fucking hours and hours working on over the last year (well october-june time) is now utterly obsolete. Kind of a slap in the face there, especially when trying to sell a £40 DLC to me is going to be damn near impossible.

Ah well, I'll give it until the next super digital deluxiest edition comes out with all of the current content and more so that I'm not wasting money too much and then consider getting back into it.

Destiny 2 should be out next year. Buy the original then with everything bundled togeather. I know they'll do it. Expect gear to reset with every new expansion. Or at least. Once a year. We'll see how that goes. In MMOs I can forgive it, because there's more gear, and more time in-between resets. But I was disappointed to hear most of my gear is trash now.

Yeah, I mean the dark below gear shit wasn't too cool, having everyone dress like shit and use the same 4 guns makes for a very refreshing game. HoW was better because of the etheric light dealio, but now they've canned that and it's just very... hollow feeling.

All the exotics I'm fond of? gimped for eternity
Some of the legendary shit I took ages to ascend so I'd look cool? trash
But oh boy we've got green shit now :DDDDDDD

*sigh*

I'm glad I got off the density train when I did.

A good chunk of exotics got a Year 2 edition that you can get in game relatively easy if you have the Year One version.

It's not uncommon with what they did - with new expansions and games on the horizons, they have to give longevity - giving you amazing weapons in Year One and having you use them to fly through the future DLC does not do that.

I think that it wouldn't be too hard for them to have expanded the etheric light system as well as adding in all the new shit <_<

Most of the community hated the etheric light system.

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 02:56:25 PM

Split that over twelve months, and you're looking at between $2,100 - $6,091 per month.

Is this referencing the highest paid, or the lowest paid? I'm going to assume you pick the latter because it conveniently aids your argument.

I'm on mobile now, so I'm going to address every piece of your argument until I'm home. I will say this:

That references the absolute baseline annual salary (25k), and the most (75k, I believe it was), divided over 12 months. The median salary would lie at about 4k.

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 02:41:04 PM

Carpentry, Masonry, vocational careers. You do realize these are careers that not everyone without a degree (or with one) can do well, correct?

Yes. You also don't need a degree to do them either.

Great.

I'm going to use New York City as an example, since that is what the salary website uses. On average, a carpenter in one of the larger cities (Source):

According to the BLS, carpenters earned a median salary of $40,500 in 2013, or $19.47 per hour. During that period, the highest-paid carpenters earned about $73,100, while the lowest-paid earned $25,120.

Split that over twelve months, and you're looking at between $2,100 - $6,091 per month. Now, factor out any rent (For New York city, you're going to look at between 500-1000 a month, even with a roommate - median rent of a 2 bedroom apartment is $1,600), food, which in New York City will cost between 28% and 39% more than the national average, estimating around $200 a month. Of course, you're going to need transportation - expect to shell out a good couple hundred on parking (And don't recommend public transportation - as a carpenter, you're going to need to drive with supplies).

Add those base expenses together, and at a minimum, you've got a minimum of $1,000 - this doesn't even factor in costs like insurance, gas costs, any medical expenses, etc.

So yeah, you're making 2,000 without a degree as a bottom of the line, base salary. You're also going to be scraping the barrel to cover your expenses, at least in a urban atmosphere.

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 02:23:00 PM

Quote from: A E S T H E T I C S on September 27, 2015, 02:20:05 PM

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 02:15:12 PM

Question to those against raising the minimum wage (Or even those who are for it): What are the other options?

As Challenger pointed out, the job market in most countries, especially industrialized Western nations, are becoming overcrowded with people earning degrees and searching for higher employment. Those who are working at a place like Wal-Mart, McDonalds, or other retail environments are growingly finding themselves stuck there - they may get lucky and get some management position, but nothing with a stable enough income to actually contribute more to the overall economy.

First of all, over inflating tertiary education is never a good thing. If everyone and their grandma has a bachelor degree, what's the point in getting one? How are employers able to discern who is best for the job?

This statement makes it sound like there is always going to be a section of workers that is going to be down on the luck in terms of wages and employment.

No, it means that not everyone should be getting college degrees because it renders them useless.

So, a chunk of people who aren't going to get degrees from a university are going to work their lives at some retail establishment of some kind - for low wages that they cannot live on.

Tell me again how that fixes the problem?

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 02:15:12 PM

Question to those against raising the minimum wage (Or even those who are for it): What are the other options?

Meta often cites the subsidization of wages as an alternative, but that's all I'm aware of.

One solution won't fix an issue that's been compounded for decades.

Anyone know of ways to get strange coins before level 40? i.e., no weekly heroic strike or that stuff.

Might get lucky with a Crucible drop. Other than that, not really.

It's hard to tell if that's good or bad.

Well, considering he helped get a number of Tea Party Republicans elected in 2010...

Quote from: Septy on September 26, 2015, 12:52:00 PM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on September 26, 2015, 12:50:00 PM

Quote from: Mr Whiteflame on September 26, 2015, 12:43:37 PM

Three of coins and strikes are good. You get them from xur and every time you kill a strike boss and you pop one it will increase your chance for an exotic from the next boss you kill. The leveling system is revamped so you have a base level of 40 to achieve and then a light level which at this point has a max of 310 (You should start somewhere in the 170 range if you have already been playing). You will get a new subclass on the second mission of the DLC depending on your class. The raid requires a light level of around 290 but it is totally worth getting up in levels to do it. Besides that a whole bunch of rebalancing has been done, much too many things have changed to list on here but here are some basic things.

Any tips on where to get started working on gear? And I've noticed my old gear works just fine in patrols and the crucible; I assume higher level missions and raids will prove that it's all obsolete.

Quests

So just to confirm, my purples and exotics are completely useless in strikes and stuff, so outside of sentimental value there's no reason to not deconstruct all of them for materials? Or will they not even give me anything useful and they should just sit in the bank forever?

Decode if you want - it'll give you Y1 upgrade stuff that you can turn in for reputation and such.

Quote from: Septy on September 26, 2015, 12:04:59 PM

Any gun is better than what you have now

So should I just be ditching all my purples and exotics and starting from greens and blues?

All Year One items have a max level of 180. With Year 2, the items go beyond that -  so regular Y2 greens will deal as much, if not more, than a Y1 exotic. Sone Y1 exotics have gotten a stronger Y2 option as well.

You can still use Y1 items for any of the pre-Taken King story missions and strikes though

Quote from: Luciana on September 24, 2015, 08:17:43 PM

After Kingdom Hearts 2, I gave up following the story seeing as they made like 40 hand held games I couldn't care less about.

Only 3 of them are relevant.

4*

Does someone want to summarize Hunt the Truth for me since I'm too lazy to listen.