ASL Veteran

Now that I think about it, I think that when Steve said the end of 2009 / early part of 2010 he was correct from a technical standpoint. I do think that he indicated that all the major coding was done by then and that there was just some polishing and all the scenarios, campaigns, etc stuff that had to be worked on. So from a strictly coding standpoint his estimate was probably accurate. He just didn't account for the time it takes to put together scenarios and campaigns etc. So as far as his ballpark estimate went I'm willing to give him a pass on that one. That's what I've taken away from his various postings anyway. Of course, only Steve, Charles, and the Beta Testers know for certain where they are at. :confused:

'Tis better to go out the day before CMN gets released not knowing that it would be released the next day rather than to suffer a heart attack from over excitement upon first holding the newly delivered game in your hands!

It doesn't really matter whether God exists or not. I personally don't go to church and I never have. What matters is how the document is constructed and what it is based on. What it is based on is that God grants human beings a set of rights that the state can't take away. Why can't the state take these rights away? Because they are granted by God and not the state. I personally would categorize myself as an Agnostic and the concept of how the constitution is constructed makes sense to me so I'm sure that anyone who wants to understand the constitution conceptually should be able to.

Well, there is nothing necessarily wrong with the state providing healthcare to it's citizenry. The problem comes when you make Healthcare a "Right" of the citizens. If healthcare is a right and not an economic transaction then the first thing that you have to determine is what makes healthcare a right - who decides that? The State? If it is a right then who provides the service? If the service is to be provided and it is a right then the one who provides the service must provide that service regardless of compensation (or lack thereof). There is a fundamental difference between rights as spelled forth in the constitution and the declaration of independence, and various rights claimed by 'socialists' of various stripes (for lack of a better term - I'm not trying to label anyone in here). The Rights as outlined in the constitution are rights of the individual that the state cannot take away. Why can't the state take away your rights? Because our rights come from God. A Socialist views a "Right" as something that the State "must provide" to the citizens. The two views of what a "Right" is cannot be reconciled.

No, not quite. It all depends upon who grants your rights. If your rights are given to you by the State then the State can take them away. If your rights are given to you by God then only God can take them away. The Declaration of Independence says that you are endowed by "Our Creator with certain inalienable rights", thus when a criminal commits murder the state can take away the criminal's rights to both life and liberty because they have broken God's law as put forth in the commandments.

I like this hypothetical. It's simple and clean. In this example, the guy with the bum leg is producing arrow heads because he can't hunt. In exchange for that the hunters give him a share of the hunt so he can eat. In other words, there is an incentive for the guy with the bum leg to 'produce' something so that he can earn a share of the hunt. If he doesn't produce something then he may well starve. What if the tribal chief mandated that every hunter surrender 10% of their share of the hunt to the individual with the bum leg irrespective of what the guy with the bum leg is producing? Now the guy with the bum leg has no incentive to produce anything even though he could because he knows he will be fed regardless of what he does. If given a choice between laying around playing Combat Mission and going to work every day I can say with some certainty that most people would rather lay around and play Combat Mission. Certainly if I could sit around at home all day long playing Combat Mission I would do it!

Gunnergoz, an excellent response and not exactly the one I was expecting either. However, I would like to focus on this bit here as rights and privileges can get to the heart of a few disagreements. I think the difference is one of perception though. Let me go through an exercise with health care. If health care is a human right in a similar way to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness then that would mean that the individual can't have that right taken away from them by the state - or I suppose alternatively that the state has an obligation to provide that right to the individual depending upon where you are coming from. There is a fundamental difference between healthcare as a right and life or liberty as a right. The difference being that healthcare, by definition, is a "service" while life and liberty are not "services" but rather more akin to a state of being. A service requires that another individual must provide something to you in order for you to benefit from that right, service, product, whatever. If something is a service that is being provided, does making that service a right for the recipient not infringe upon the rights of those who are required by law to provide it? In other words, doesn't the person required to provide healthcare to someone then become a slave to the state or to the person receiving the healthcare? What happens when the state can no longer provide that service for whatever reason? For example, there are many documented cases in the UK where patients were denied cancer drugs by a government review board or some other reason. Does that not constitute the state taking away the 'rights' of the individual for the receipt of healthcare? What gives the state the authority to remove the rights of the individual for healthcare?

So what is the gunnergoz definition of a "wealthy individual", what is their "fair share", and what would you consider to be your "fair share"? Incidentally I am in full agreement with you on farm subsidies - probably for a different reason than you but I'll take an agreement on an issue where I can get one .

:eek: Now it is clear how Battlefront continues to be a viable gaming business when so many others have fallen by the wayside. If Battlefront continues to follow these rules for being a successful business there is no limit to how big they could get.

I played the Soviet CC (was that 3?) and the Bulge one (was that 4?) with a friend. We used to play it vs the AI until we finally decided to fight a battle using a direct connection over the phone lines. It was totally insane. When playing against the AI you would get a few pot shots fired and there was a lot of scattered gunfire because the AI was totally incompetent. Holy cow though - when my friend and I played our first game against each other it was like a totally different game!! The crescendo of gunfire was crazy as we were always blasting each other to pieces. We both commented about how crazy it was after our first game against each other. The gunfire was so loud and sustained that I was afraid my neighbors would check in and see what I was doing. Sound was the one area that CC beat CMx1 hands down. I don't play it anymore, but my friend still actually plays it. The main thing I don't like about it is how small the battlefield is. After playing on CM sized battlefields it's just hard to go back to something so ridiculously close range. The tanks always danced around too so that didn't help any.

The CMx2 scenario editor is way better than the CMx1 scenario editor. It's not even close. Granted, the CMx2 editor is a little more difficult to use in some instances (and it took me a while to figure out the elevations), but you can do so much more with the new editor that the extra time spent with it will pay off when your scenario is completed. The main thing is that you can get your pixeltruppen to do things that you couldn't do with the old editor. With the old editor there were many scenarios that I absolutely couldn't make because the pixeltruppen wouldn't cooperate. At least now you can influence them to some degree. All the different building facades and the doodads that you can place all give you a lot more control of the visual appearance that you want to portray. The smaller grid size is a huge help too. Just making a creek bed or something like that was a very unsatisfying exercise with CMx1 since all you could make was a huge trench. As far as scenarios go - the old saying that Quantity has a Quality all it's own does not apply to scenarios. I divide scenarios into two categories a) good ones that I enjoy playing and can play over and over again bad ones that were a waste of time. Lots of scenarios doesn't mean that you get lots of good ones. It just means that you have lots of crap to sift through before you find the golden nugget that you want to play. I wish that BFC could afford to hire a full time scenario maker as I firmly believe that he or she could really tighten things up both from a game shipping standpoint and a quality standpoint, but as far as we know that individual hasn't been hired yet. It's possible that BFC has gone to a semi bounty type of system as I read on these boards that they actually did pay for some of the scenario work. I have noticed that the (part time) scenario designers for the CD scenarios have been stepping up their game between CMSF and the Brits module so I'm hoping that they will continue to improve as the modules and games come out. I think that if the CD comes with several top shelf scenarios that keep you glued to your seat the whole scenario quantity debate will fall by the wayside. I think good scenario design could have stopped many forum debates before they started. For instance, the whole window usage debate. That probably wouldn't have even come up if the scenarios in the original CMSF were better designed. I'm confident that the quality of the upcoming releases will be improved over the previous releases. Have a little faith baby. They're beautiful people. Woof woof - that's my other dog imitation.

No BP thread would be complete without this

ROFLMAO. If North Korea ends up doing something then it certainly won't be from any sort of pain inflicted on them by the UN. That sentence of yours is almost comical. I'm sure Kim jong Il is shaking in his boots at the pain and suffering that the "international community" as represented by the UN will rain down upon his head. No doubt Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba will be asked to set up a special task force to investigate North Korea's actions in sinking that South Korean ship. Pakistan will then be appointed to head a commission along with Libya, Brazil, and Turkey to recommend what level of sanctions to impose upon South Korea for illegally sailing their warship into the path of a North Korean torpedo that was fired at a nearby training target just a few yards off the coast of North Korea. No, if North Korea actually starts a war over this then it's because they want to start one, not because of anything the UN will (I mean won't) do.

Here is a video of the immediate aftermath of the big event http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/the-emperors-phone-call.html

Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man -- and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established _value_ of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world -- both the world ofmen and nature -- of its specific value. Money is the estranged essenceof man's work and man's existence, and this alien essence dominates him,and he worships it. The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of theworld. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god isonly an illusory bill of exchange.Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself,which is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion, is thereal, conscious standpoint, the virtue of the man of money. The species-relation itself, the relation between man and woman, etc.,becomes an object of trade! The woman is bought and sold. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of of the merchant, of the man of money in general.Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence ofJudaism -- huckstering and its preconditions -- the Jew will have becomeimpossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object, becausethe subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, ndbecause the conflict between man's individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished. Karl Marx on "The Jewish Question" http://www.cooper.edu/humanities/core/hss3/k_marx4.html So why am I posting this here? This may possibly be a land "problem" between the Arabs and the Israelis themselves, but why are there so many non Arabs who dislike Israel so virulently? Think about it. Until the Palestinians and the Iranians etc recognize the right of Israel to exist then there will be no peace. If you are one of those international lawyer types then you shouldn't have any doubts about Israel's right to exist since the modern state of Israel was created by the UN. Incidentally, just a little tidbit that some of you might not be aware of The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan, and means "Land of the Aryans".[13][14][15] it's in Wikipedia but I'm sure it can be found elsewhere if you don't trust Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran I'm not sure why, but my fonts got all screwed up and I'm just going to have to give up trying to repair them . Looks like I might have gotten the fonts fixed now

No, I don't think it's strange at all. Social conservatives are very concerned with the rights of the unborn to have life. Might I suggest that you do a little reading on the origins of "Planned Parenthood" and Margaret Sangar before you put something like this out for the forum to ponder. I'm not sure that you've fully thought through your position on abortion and all the ethical complications that it involves. Here is a starter for you While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others. more here http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html If you don't like that website then just type "Margaret Sangar", "Planned Parenthood", or "Eugenics" in your search engine.

Sorry, I was away for a few days. Kanonier Reichman is correctly describing what a 'Call Option' is. Keep in mind that a 'Call Option' is just one kind of derivative. There are many derivatives out there and I only used the example of a 'Call Option' to explain what a derivative is. It is also the most simple derivative out there. Diesel, there is nothing fundamentally good or bad about a derivative. A derivative just exists and has a function that it fulfills for both those who want to use it to reduce risk through hedging and for those who want to gamble a bit through speculating. It's really not that complicated. Saying that a derivative is good or evil is similar to saying that a hammer is good or evil. The thing about my example that seems to be troubling you though is - well there doesn't seem to be any purpose to it other than for wealthy people to make more money. Well, I suppose that's right to some degree except for one thing. By show of hands, does anyone in here have a savings account, own shares in a mutual fund, have a 401k, or have a pension plan? How do you think the value of your savings accounts, mutual funds, and pension funds change? Does anyone in here think that once you deposit your money in a bank savings account that the money just sits in a vault? If that's what happened, then how would a bank be able to pay you interest on your deposit? No, a bank can pay you interest on your savings accounts because the bank does something with your money. The bank either invests it or lends it to someone else. This is probably one of the most common finance mistakes people can make - they assume that money that is being 'saved' is removed from the economy as if it's being stuffed in a huge corporate mattress somewhere. Au Contraire! In fact, stuffing money in your mattress actually causes you to lose money because the value of your dollar is reduced because of inflation.

No - because I didn't sell my stock, I sold an option to buy my stock at a price of $12 per share and the $8 is the money that is given to me by the person buying the option to buy my stock (just $8 for the single option, not $8 per share for 100 shares because they aren't buying my stock but rather the option to buy my stock). So you see, I sold my call option to Stalin and Diesel for $8 - that's what they are paying to me for the option to buy my stock at $12 per share. Of course, I'm not going to sell them an option that's in the money because then as soon as they bought the option from me they would exercise it - I certainly wouldn't want to do that. when I sold the call option the price was $10 per share so a call option with a "strike price" of $12 is out of the money (because they can only exercise the option they bought from me for eight bucks (for the single option) if the price goes up to $12 or more since that's the 'strike price'). One Call Option allows the purchaser to buy 100 shares of stock, so one call equals one hundred shares of stock but only if the option is exercised. I probably didn't make that clear in my example above because it's basically common trading knowledge that one option equals 100 shares - my apologies for that. The strike price is the price that the stock has to be over in order for the option to be exercised (or spent, or used, or consumed or whatever term is simpler). Keep in mind that the call option is a derivative of the underlying stock and not the stock itself, therefore the derivative trades separately from the stock and acts as it's own security - yet it's still tied to the underlying security because that's the security that the option is "derived" from.

Okay, a simple derivatives explanation (or rather, as simple as I can make it). Let’s pretend that Battlefront is now a corporation and say that I am interested in buying some stock in Battlefront Inc. Okay, if we assume that Battlefront (fake ticker symbol BFC) is trading at $10 per share and I buy 100 shares (a round lot) then I’ve just spent $1000. Now then, let’s imagine that Steve has announced that CM:N will be released on July 4 and I think it’s going to be a huge hit. I figure that once CM:N is released the value of my stock will increase to $15 per share because everyone will want to own a piece of Battlefront. The thing is though, that I’ve reviewed Steve’s record on his release date predictions and I think he’s going to miss that deadline. I still think that when the game is finally released it will be a hit. However, since I think the release won’t happen until sometime in August the price of my stock won’t go up until then, therefore I feel safe in writing a “Call Option” with a strike price of $12 per share and an expiration date of July 4. The Call Option is called a ‘derivative’ because it is a derivative of the stock I own. Each Call Option gives the person buying the “Call” the “option to buy” 100 shares of stock from me at a guaranteed price of $12 per share (the strike price). This is what’s known as a ‘Covered Call’ because the Call Option that I just wrote is covered by the 100 shares of BFC that I already own. In other words, I’m using my 100 shares of BFC as collatoral for my ‘call option’. If the call was Naked, then I would be writing the call without owning the stock and if the option was exercised by the purchaser I would have to buy the stock on the open market and sell it at a loss to the owner of my call option. I don’t have that problem though because my call option is ‘covered’ by the 100 shares of BFC that I already own. If the stock is currently $10 per share and the strike price is $12 per share then the Call Option is ‘Out of the Money’ because why would anyone want to pay a guaranteed $12 per share by buying the stock from me when it’s currently trading at $10 per share on the open market. Okay, so far I own 100 shares of BFC and I have written a Call Option on my stock with a strike price of $12 and an expiration date of July 4. Why would I write this option? I would write the option because I’m going to sell it to someone else for a price – let’s just say that I sell it at a price of $8. If the stock price never goes above $12 per share then I just made $8 for doing nothing ….got it? So why would anyone buy my Call Option? Let’s pretend that Stalin’s Organist is a nasty capitalist speculator who is absolutely positive that Steve will release CM:N a day early on July 3 and the stock price will skyrocket to $20 that day. If Stalin’s Organist is correct, he can buy my Call Option with a strike price of $12 from me for $8, he can then watch the price of BFC go up to $20 per share, exercise the option he bought from me, and buy 100 shares of BFC from me at a price of $12 per share. Since he bought my stock at $12 per share and the stock is trading at $20 per share on the open market he can immediately sell that stock on the market for $20 per share. Now then, Stalin’s Organist just made $800 (the difference between the price and the strike price) - $8 (what he paid me for the option) = $792 (Stalin’s Organist’s profit). I of course lose the same amount in terms of opportunity cost because if I hadn’t written the option then I would have been able to sell my shares of BFC at $20 instead of $12. Granted, I still made $208 since I bought the stock at $10 but still, $800 more is better. So you see, I write the call option and Stalin’s Organist buys the option and we are betting against each other. He thinks the price will go up and I think the price will remain the same. If the price doesn’t go above $12 before July 4 when the option expires then I win. If it does go up then Stalin’s Organist wins and I lose. Now then, Diesel Taylor is a sophisticated investor who thinks that Steve will release CMN on July 4, but that he is certain that it’s going to be a total buggy disaster and the price of BFC stock will fall through the floor. He plans on “Shorting” BFC stock. Since Diesel is a sophisticated investor though he is going to “hedge” his position. Let’s just say that Diesel shorts BFC at $10 per share. What this means is that Diesel has sold 100 shares of BFC that he doesn’t own at $10 per share. He still has to buy BFC eventually in order to complete the transaction so by selling at $10 he assumes the price will fall to $5 per share and he will buy the stock back at that time. If he sells it at $10 and buys it at $5 then Diesel will make $500 because the stock lost value. If the stock goes up to $15 though … well then Diesel would have to buy his ‘Short’ position back at $15 when he sold for $10 and he would lose $500. Diesel isn’t the sort of guy who says “easy come, easy go” when money is involved, so he is going to hedge his position and limit his upside risk by buying my Call Option at a strike price of $12. This way, if CMN turns out to be a solid hit and the price goes up to $20 per share, Diesel can limit his loss to $2 per share plus what he paid me for my option (or a total of $208) by my guarantee to him that I will sell to him at a price of $12. Once again, Diesel and I are betting against each other if the stock price goes up, but this time Diesel is buying the option as a hedge in case his prediction of a BFC collapse doesn’t come true.

My intent was not to confuse - financial terms have very specific meanings and I'm not sure how to explain something easily without the use of the technical terms. Breaking up the technical terms into more ... every day language might make sentences a little awkward since each word would require it's own sentence to explain fully. When dealing with anything in the financial services industry there are very few things which are 'sure things'. Finance essentially deals with probabilities. If something is known for certain then everyone would profit from it - for example, if everyone on Wall Street knew that the mortgage industry would collapse then all the big firms on Wall Street would have made huge gobs of cash from it rather than being destroyed . The uncertainty factor is where hedging comes into play - you expect that outcome A is going to happen, but you can never be 100% certain that it will happen, so you 'hedge' by guarding against the opposite happening with a derivative. I have typed up an example of derivatives using 'options' and I'll post it shortly. I don't honestly know how easy it will be for the general forumites to understand, but it's about as simple as I can explain it. I'll be happy to answer any questions on it though if anyone needs a fuller explanation or is just curious.

The intent was obviously to determine what the knowledge base was of those who are/were supportive of the initial post. I can only find that out by asking them to define things for me. The purpose is to allow people to 'discover' things on their own through questioning - I find that's more effective than to just tell someone something. Most people are more resistant to adjusting their positions or views on a matter if they are told something than if they are allowed to discover things on their own.

Hmmm, I'm not sure who is obfuscating things here - I was pretty straightforward in what I was saying :confused:. I managed to find an article from today that is a pretty good discussion of what I was trying to say (although I would still quibble with a few things that he says) http://article.nationalreview.com/433223/the-senate-and-goldman-sachs/daniel-krauthammer I guess maybe if I have time I'll type up a very simple explanation of how derivatives are used in the market - perhaps that will clarify things a bit.

I'm not too well versed in the specific derivative securities that were used, but I am pretty well versed in derivatives in general. Basically the writer and purchaser of the derivative are 'betting' against each other, although I wouldn't use the term betting as I think that gives people the wrong impression of what they are used for. Typically a derivative security is used as a hedge against something bad happening to any underlying securities that the writer or purchaser are holding. From what it sounds like though, Wall Street was guilty of under collatoralization of their derivatives and were, in effect, naked on those positions. If the derivatives were fully collatoralized then there wouldn't have been a collapse as the derivative hedge positions would have worked as they were supposed to. This is probably an area where some reform could be helpful, although Warren Buffet has already spoken out against the proposed derivative collatoral requirements in the new bill being discussed in Congress now. Yes, the Paulson factor is a bit of an unknown. I'll agree that he gave Goldman an advantage if he decided to pick up the phone and call his buddies. Mortgage backed securities were an invention of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and have been around for decades. The Federal Government, through Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association I think is the official name) and Freddie Mac (which I don't remember except that the F is Federal), encouraged lending behavior by banks that fit within the political objectives of politicians of both parties by their willingness to buy mortgages of almost any risk profile (at the direction of Washington). In fact, regulators had targets that banks had to meet as to how many loans they made to various parties in order to ensure 'fairness' and 'home ownership' to minorities and other groups that were politically important. This goes back to Jimmy Carter. The risk part was not fully known because of the implicit backing of the Federal Government on the mortgage backed securities that Fannie and Freddie created. Anything backed by the US government is going to be rated AAA by a rating agency just as US Treasuries are considered - or at least used to be considered 'risk free'. That may not last too much longer, but for now Treasuries are still considered a low default risk. Yes, derivatives are a form of bet, but they are generally used as hedges so it's not like going to Las Vegas or something like that (although admittedly they can be if someone is so inclined). Fundamentally a big wall street firm like Bear Stearns will be using derivatives to reduce their risk profile. If the derivative is undercollatoralized then you have a major problem for both sides of the transaction if the bottom falls out.

I was under the impression that the recent economic collapse was caused by a 'mortgage meltdown'? I'm a little confused here .... nobody goes to Goldman Sachs to get a mortgage so I'm just curious what the specific role was that Goldman Sachs had in deliberately sabotaging the economy. Try to keep it simple for me though because I'm a simple guy .